The Death Of Uzumaki Naruto
by The New Face Of Faillure
Summary: This story will chronicle naruto's life from entering the academy til becoming hokage, as well as passed this.  You will see his romances his struggles and his victories as he fights against Orochimaru and battles off the Akatsuki.
1. Prelude

So this is my first Fan Fiction on this site, and my first Naruto one ever. It was hard for me to start a story not from the beginning. But when I started writing it, I found that I wanted to get past the Chuunin exam quickly. So I've made a prologue to the story, that is split into 6 parts. I will update the story each time I get new chapters. And I promise from here the chapters will be longer and there will be a slower pace to the story. Comments and Suggestions are welcome just keep them positive.

DISCLAIMER: I do not own, or even know anyone who owns, Naruto...

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Part 1

In the beginning of Narutos' life he would never have imagined what was in store for him when he began to understand what life was truly about.

Naruto lived with the Third Hokage. And he had been doing so since as long as he can remember. Naruto had always found it odd that no one except him called him Sarutobi that often. He was the closest thing that Naruto had ever known to a father. And for the last two years he had also been his master.

It all started when Naruto was six years old. After being passed from house to house for six years as an orphane, Naruto was finally adopted by The Third Hokage. Naruto would never forget that day.

"Naruto, there are many who don't think that you should know the true events that have caused you to be an orphan, the same events that have caused your loneliness and suffering these last few years. However I think that you will be able to understand, and with my teaching, I'm confident that you will reach the potential that I see in you. Are you still with me?"

Naruto gazed into the old mans face. Not really an old face, just older than most. And warn, Naruto could see the countless scars that laid his thick, tan, leather like skin. He could tell by the way the old man spoke that he needed to pay attention. After a few seconds Naruto replied, "yes."

"Good, I knew that you were smart. Come with me Naruto, we will go home and I'm going to tell you a story." The Third Hokage said, letting only a flash of a frown appear on his face.

Naruto had often walked passed The Hokages' mansion, and liked to pretend he lived there too. Thinking about the endless hallways, and countless rooms. His lips seemed to double in length as he smiled wide mouthed taking small steps into his room.

Much nicer than his old rooms had been, which was usually a broom closet, or small pantry. He couldn't wait to see the kitchen.

"Have a seat Naruto," The Third Hokage began, as Naruto sat in a chair across from him. "A few years ago there was a devastating war amongst the ninja nations. Many lives were lost as the countries ragged on changing the landscape. During this fight, a monster called the Kyuubi was summoned. A giant nine tailed fox, whose temper, and rage could not be controlled. At that time I was no longer Hokage. There was another. The Fourth Hokage, was believed the be the most powerful of all the Hokage's to date. The Fourth Hokage was killed sealing the Kyuubi into a newly born infant. That infant was you Naruto. You hold the Kyuubi."

At first Sarutobi thought that Naruto had not understood what he had told him. But when he looked closer the old man could see the concentration on his face. Like he was thinking really hard about something.

"Old man, can that thing come out again?" Naruto asked looking slightly concerned.

"Yes Naruto, it can take over your body. However, together we will make you strong, and you will be able to control the beast inside of you. If all goes well, you will never have to fear it getting loose. Because it is sealed inside, and only you can let that seal be removed." The old man answered. Naruto I don' think that you will fully comprehend what has happened to you, but as you get older, more things will start to make sense, and your life will have meaning."

"When will we start training?" Naruto stated after a long moment.

"You can't enter the academy until you reach the age of at least 8. So it will be a while before that. But I will start teaching you some of the basics in a few weeks, once your used to living here. So why don't we both get some sleep, you look tired and I could use a nap." The Third Hokage stated.

Naruto climbed into bed and closed his eyes as the lights went out. Before he could count to ten he was asleep.

Part 2

After a few weeks Naruto began to learn the basics of being a ninja. He grasped tthings easily and was quickly learning how to use Taijitsu. The first step in the art form that is a ninja battle.

It was hard for The Third to train Naruto personally everyday. So he often had high level Jounins teach him instead. The Third wanted Naruto to develope extensive skills in many areas. He wasn't sure when Naruto may really need them.

For the most part Naruto learned Taijitsu for the first six months, spending countless hours training with Master Gai. A green spandex wairing spaz. But there was no one that could contend with his hand to hand skills. Naruto trained with extremely heavy weights that he wore all the time. Causing him to become quicker and faster then most his age.

After six months The Third decided that Naruto should start learning another set of skills. His Taijitsu was well above genin level, and he was soaking up information like a sponge. The Third chose Kakashi as a new teacher for Naruto. And today was their first traning session.

They met in one of Naruto's favorite places in the city. A medium sized training grounds located deep in a forest next to a large lake. Naruto loved to fight on top of water. The reflections dazzled him.

"Naruto, I want you to come at me, like you want to kill me, and try to punch me." Kakashi instructed.

Naruto showed no hesitation in his actions as his figure's form blured. A blink of an eye later kakashi swiftly dodged a blow to the face, and jumped back. Within an instand Naruto was on him again, this time going for his legs with a low sweep kick, quickly changing to a full force upper cut hoping to catch him in the air. Naruto was puzzled when his hand connected with a section of brown dry log instead of flesh.

"You have some skill Naruto. I think that it's time to move onto something a little newer. You have been taught very well in your chakra control. Now it's time that you use it for something other than walking on water and sticking to tree branches."

"What are you going to teach me Master?" Naruto replied, his eyes brightening with each jump.

"I am going to teach you Ninjitsu. The main fighting force of a ninja. Now every person has an affinity to one of the elements. At least most do. Have you been able to figure out what yours is?" Kakashi began.

"No, The Third thought that it was going to be wind, but I haven't tried anything to know." Naruto replied.

"Well then let's start with something that isn't too tough. Your first move with be Bunshin No Jitsu. Every person must learn this technique in order to graduate from the academy. It's fairly easy if you can control your chakra correctly. Here are the hand seals." Kakashi instructed.

Naruto watched Kakashi trying hard to not miss anything he was doing. After he had been shown, Naruto tried doing the technique. He managed a weak one the first try, a good resemblance of himself, but it didn't have much power to stay with. Through out the day it improved however, and by lunch time he had come close to mastering the technique.

This is how his days went. He would train with Kakashi until lunch and then go and train with The Third afterwards. Within no time they had him trained to a genin level in his Taijitsu, he had learned a decent amount of Ninjitsu techniques for his age, and was going to soon start work on Genjitsu. But wasn't hoping to accomplish much more then being able to despell one. As he was not that battle type of a ninja.

Naruto only had two more weeks before he would enter the academy, and be take his first step towards being a ninja. And The Third had decided to let him take the time off to start meeting his classmates. So Naruto left the mansion and walked the streets looking for a familiar face to talk to for a while.

He liked walking in crowds. Able to observe the people around him without looking like he was doing it. For some reason he felt safe in Konoha. A safe that he hoped would stay.

Naruto saw people that were most likely going to be his classmates, a few that he already knew. there was Hyuuga Neji, and Hinata. Rock Lee, who from what people were saying couldn't do ninjitsu. A pink haired girl, who he later found out was named Sakura. And right before he got home he saw Uchiha Sasuke.

Naruto saw Sasuke often. He was always by himself, and never looked happy. However, Naruto didn't think he would be happy either if everyone he knew had been murdered by his own brother. It was amazing to Naruto how well Sasuke seemed to contain himself.

Naruto did not know who his mother or his father was. But he often dreamed of it being The Fourth himself who was his father. He saw a slight similarity to the figure in the cliff. And pretended to have conversations with his father in his head. He decided that pretending to fill what you don't know is better than only remembering what you won't have anymore.

Naruto spent that rest of the two weeks doing close to the same thing day to day. Training himself in the morning, just doing muscular and cardio workouts, to maintain the body that he had built. Then walking the town and talking to whoever was willing, it made him happy to talk to people he didn't know.

Before he knew it it was time for him to enter the Academy. He started the next morning, and he was laying in bed, unable to sleep because of the excitement that he felt.

Part 3

Neji stayed silent as stone as he creeped around a corner of a cliff side. They were getting closer to the top of the mountain and he knew that there could be traps anywhere. The people they were after had gone through a lot of trouble to hide and weren't going to like to be found.

"Byakugen." Neji stated. Naruto always grinned when he saw the veins in Nejis' white eye's buldge out.

"Hopefully we are getting close to the roundevous point. I'm not sure where Sensai is coming from." Sasuke stated.

They had just sighted the last turn in the mountain. After this the fighting would start. Once they turned the corner it was two hundred feet to a large stone building, inside was the person they were after. Some VIP's daughter had been kidnapped to hold randsom, they had to get her out.

"He's coming, we're just about in place, just another hundred feet," Neji stated. "Ok, stop, now wait for my signal. Kakashi is almost ready. On go. GO!"

Naruto, Sasuke, Neji, and Kakashi all dissapeared and reappeared on different sides of the structure. Covering the back and the front entrances. The plan was for Kakashi to enter in the back after Naruto and the others created a diversion in the front. Then he would attack penetrate teh structure, get the girl and give the sign for retreat.

They rushed through the rooms of the building knocking out everyone they came across. Since there were no ninja in the building they didn't want too many casualties.

Finally Neji saw the signal Kakashi was giving them from outisde, and the group quickly exited the building. Fifteen yards away from the building Kakashi waited with the now rescued woman. The mission was a success. Which was fortunate because it was their first mission outside of the city since they graduated the academy.

The five of them met up and headed back towards Konoha.

Luckily the mission hadn't taken them far from Konoha and they were home by nightfall. To celebrate their success the Hokage invited them to dinner with him, as well as another team that had just had a similar accomplishment.

It wasn't long before everyone had arrived and was seated at the table. Before them sat a beautiful meal constructed to each of their tastes. But they all got the feeling that this was not what it seemed. The Third had looked gloomy all night and hadn't said a word so far.

"I want to congradulate you on your successful mission. I was thoroughly pleased that you had such ease. However as I'm sure that you've guessed this dinner was not simply for that purpose. Konoha is in trouble. We have received information that something is going to happen at the chuunin exam. Although the details are lacking, including actual battle plans, who is involved, and to what extent, it comes from an accurate source of information. Therefore we are going to treat it as if were a code red threat." The Third began.

Naruto could tell something had been wrong for a few days, Sarutobi had been keeping to himself, and spent more time than normal in meetings. He wondered what had happened, and if they were somehow part of the solution.

"You three are the strongest from our village that are entering the chuunin exam in a few months. And we fear that the attack is going to have something to do with the parts of the exam that we can't control. Therefore we are going to seperate your team. And give you each your own sensai's until the time has arrived for the exams. Kakashi is going to be training Sasuke, since he has the Sharingan. Naruto you will be training with me. And Neji you will be training with Hyuuga Hiashi." The Third continued.

"Hokage-sama, I don't think that he will train me, he has never accepted me as an equal and I am not allowed to be trained by a main branch family member." Neji said calmly, yet you could sense a small amount of emotion on his face. But not what it was.

"I have already spoken to him, and informed him that in times of war I will not tolerate petty problems amongst the villagers elders. Do not worry, he completely understand that he is to treat you with respect, but I warn you to treat him the same. The Third replied, "if you don't I can't say what may happen."

Neji just nodded his head in agreement.

The training was to start the next morning, so all of them went home after they ate. Naruto couldn't sleep, he didn't like that there was no information about the attack, and worried if that was going ot be their undoing.

Part 4

At dawn Sarutobi woke Naruto up to begin his training. They went to a special place on top of the stone faces of the past Hokage's. Only a few people were allowed to train here now, as it caused a lot of damage to the carvings.

"Naruto you have become strongly quiclky. Because your team consists of Konoha's strongest graduates your team has grown fast. You however have the most to worry about in this upcoming suituation. People will always be after the Kyuubi inside of you. And you must always be ready. Today I will teach you a new technique. Kirigakure No Jutsu." The Third began.

"I have heard of that before. Kakashi told me that it is a concealment technique. Seems a little simple to be useful." Naruto replied.

"In most respects you are right Naruto, it is usually dispelled quickly, or seen through immediately. But it will give you a moment to hide, and to prepare. Or it may just give you an advantage for a weaker ninja. Another problem with this is that you usually have to have water around to use this technique. But a powerful ninja will be able to do it anyway." The Third continued. "First I will show you the hand seals."

The Third moved slowly and deliberately to ensure that Naruto caught them all the first time.

"Kirigakure No Jutsu." He said.

Naruto watched as a thick mist covered the area, and The Third slowly dissapeared. Before he knew it The Third was right in front of him, with a kunai placed directly in front of his throat.

"Now how would I counter this move?" Naruto asked.

"You have always thought that way Naruto, and it's good that you know you must protect yourself. A few things can counter this, either a bloodline like the Sharingan, or Byakugan. Or by dissolving the mist with a fire technique. Such as Katon: Housenka No Jutsu. You already know that one, you just can't use it very much. So Naruto I want you to try this technique." The Third instructed.

Naruto first did the hand seals slowly, making sure to get each one perfect. Then he concentrated very hard and said, "Kirigakure No Jutsu."

It took longer than would be useful, but it slowly came and covered the area. Naruto and The Third sat up there and worked on this technique for the whole day, going over the many uses and counters for the move.

Most of the training done with Naruto wasn't to make him more powerful. Many of the moves were too powerful for him to use effectively, especially if he was going to need to attack again. The Third was showing Naruto many moves so that he would know what to do under many many attacks. His training went on like this for the first month.

Sasuke, Neji, and Naruto had all been training hard for one month. Preparing for whatever problem they were expecting to encounter. The first month had been mostly preperation. And now they were going to see how it went.

"You three are now going to have a match to see if you are ready. If you are ready then you will have the next month to prepare and train as you see fit. You will be facing Kakashis' bell test. From the time we say go, you have til sunrise to take your bells." The Third stated. "START!"

With a flash of smoke Naruto, Neji, Sasuke, and Kakashi all dissapeared. Heading in what seemed like the same direction.

Naruto who was not ever one to wait went straight after Kakashi. Within moments they were engaged in a serious set of Taijitsu moves. Naruto dove to the side barely dodging a kick from Kakashi, at the same time he threw two kunai from only five feet away, but Kakashi deflected one with his kunai and dodged the other one.

Sasuke and Neji had both found spots on either side of the two fighting, waiting for a moment to take advantage of. They had worked with Naruto long enough to know that he would go straight after him and they both had plans of their own.

After a few minutes the two seperated and were breathing heavily. They had been blow for blow the whole time, neither one able to find an opening.

"I'm impressed Naruto you were always quick, but you've gotten faster, The Third must have worked you hard." Kakashi complimented.

Neji and Sasuke took this as their time to unleash their plan. Sasuke rushed at kakashi making symbols as he went. He only had one shot at this, as Kakashi had left his sharingan covered. So he wouldn't be able to guess what was going on.

"Katon: Housenka No Jutsu!" Sasuke roared as he fired multiple fireballs out of his mouth hurling towards Kakashi.

Kakashi evaded each one as he slowly backed up, he knew Sasuke had awakened his Sharingan during his training and was already better then him at Taijitsu, so he did not want him getting too close.

_I can't go half ass with these guys anymore, I better use my Sharingan. _Kakashi thought to himself.

But right as he moved his hand to lift up his forehead protector. Neji chose that time to finish the plan, he dropped down on Kakashi with his eyes bulging and starting going after Kakashi with his Gentle Fist attacks. It only took a few moves for him to connect a blow to each of his legs, making him unable to move. Neji grabbed all three bells right before Kakashi went to the ground. The test was over.

"Congratulations you three, that is the fastest time you guys have gotten the bells from him. You three are ready, so take some time off. I know you will all train but keep it light, we need you as fresh as possible during the exams." The Third instructed.

Part 5

Naruto had spent the last month working on his chakra stamina and control with some of the new techniques that he had used. And now it was time for the exams.

Naruto met with Sasuke and Neji right outside the classroom where they were to take the first test. They both looked good, from what he had been told the few times they had met up to train they had all been doing pretty much the same thing. Sasuke had worked on his stamina and reserves so that he could use the sharingan longer. And Neji had been working hard with the Hyuuga head to become better with his Gentle Fist technique and other things. They were pretty confident that they were going to do ok.

Once they walked inside they were surprised to see so many people in the room. They sat quietly in the corner of the room waiting for the instructor to enter.

Out of the corner of his eye Naruto found someone that he knew. Hyuuga Hinata. She had just bumped into a rather large male. Who didn't look too friendly when he turned around.

Naruto moved without thinking, someone from his village was about to be attacked, and she had no way of stopping it. He got there right in time and blocked the attack.

"You have guts to interfere with us boy. You better watch your back." The tall ninja said. The symbol on his forehead protector was that of the sound. Naruto would remember that.

Only a moment or two later the instructor entered the room and guided them all into the testing area. Where each team was seperated from each other and given a seat, a pencil and a test sheet.

"On the board in front of you there are nine questions, you have forty five minutes for these questions. After that I will reveal the tenth question, and you will have another forty five minutes to answer that one. There are moderators watching you all and anyone caught cheating three times will be disqualified, and so will their team members. Ready begin." Ibiki stated.

Naruto couldn't help but look at all the scars on the instructors face for a moment before he started. Just a glance at the questions was enough to know that these questions were too hard for most Genin to know the answers. But Naruto had spent much time training his mind as well as his body. And he had no problem with the first nine questions.

He sat and waited patiently, looking at the other ninjas in the room, trying to figure out how they were getting the answeres. He had found several interesting ideas. One strange boy from the Sand had created an eye with to see with. One was using mirrors on the ceiling. And he was pretty sure at some point he saw Ino take over Sakura's mind.

After a little while time ran up and Ibiki stopped the examinees.

"It is now time for the last question. But first I must give you all a warning. If you do not answer this question right you will fail, and you will not be able to take the exam again. You or your team mates. Please raise your hand if you wish to leave." Ibiki finished.

Naruto watched as a few teams walked out of the doors, knowing that they were not qualified to be in the exam anyway. After a few minutes everyone that was going to leave had done so.

"I congratulate all of you who were brave enough and confident enough to take this last question on. I also congratulate you because you all pass the first test. The whole thing was a diversion, a way of making you use tactics to obtain information that you do not have and need. If you were able to not get caught, you did well enough to pass. Wait here and your next instructor will be with you to explain the next part of the exam." Ibiki explained.

Just as he finished there was a crash and a woman sprang through the window, and stood in front of them all.

Ibiki just stood and shook his head at the flamboyent entrance.

"My name Is Anko, I will be the instructor for the next part of the exam. Everyone follow me." Anko said.

They all followed her out of the building and down a path, that all of them knew, but none of them had walked. It led to a forest that struck fear into even the Jounin that entered it.

"Each of you will enter as your teams. Each team will have one of these two scrolls, either the earth scroll of the heaven scroll. You must not open it until you reach the end. Once inside you have three days to obtain the opposite scroll from what you have been given. This is the part of the exam where people start to die. Take this seriously as no one will enter the forest to help you or to stop anything going on. I am going to pass out this consent form to you all. Please fill it out and return it to the tent to receive your scroll and gate number." Anko instructed.

Naruto, Neji, and Sasuke gathered together away from everyone else to fill there's out. They wanted to start strategizing as soon as possible.

But while they were doing so The Third came up to them to speak with them one last time before they entered.

"Please gather close as we do not want anyone to hear us. You three have a mission while you are doing this. Keep an eye out for anyone too strong to be in the exam, and above all else make it out alive. Because if they don't attack now, then it will be during the last part. And we can't afford to not have you three participate." The Third instructed, and then disappeared in smoke back to his observation point.

Naruto and his team worked towards their gate, as they worked out a strategy.

"This makes things slightly more difficult for us. Having to do this mission while we take this test will be distracting. But it must be done, either of you have any suggestions." Sasuke asked.

"Well, I think that above all else we should try to pass the test. Because as The Third said we are needed in the next part. Also by obtaining another scroll we can measure at least one other teams capabilities, if we just survey the battles going around and wait until we find a team that we think should be investigated, then we can accomplish the mission as well as the exam." Neji suggested.

"I think that's a good idea. Why don't we head towards the tower and set up and ambush. Then we can leur whatever team we wish into it?" Naruto added.

Neji and Sasuke nodded in agreement. And with that the test was started the gates were open and the teams were free to enter. Naruto and his team dashed into the field and quickly moved towards the next gate location, hoping to spot the team that was entering closest to them. Each gate was roughly thirty yards away from each other. So there was plenty of time to get away from the gate. Thus they all moved at a thirty degree angle to the gate they moved in, and decided to go that way til they hit a wall or found another team.

They traveled fast for almost a mile before the found their first signs of another team. But they quickly found they were already in battle. It is dishonorable to engage ninja already in a battle. So for now they waited. Staying hidden so that they could watch the battle unfold.

Three of the ninja fighting were from Konoha, Lee, Sakura, and Kiba. The other three they did not recognize. The battle had already been underway when they arrived. The three from Konoha were fighting against a team that they did not know. But the battle seemed to be even. Kiba had just taken one out with a distraction from Akimaru. Sakura and Lee were engaged in a raged Taijitsu battle. Both of them seemed to be doing alright.

"I think that we should move on. Those shinobi are from the Hidden Village of the Rain. They usually stay out of world affairs. If they are trouble, we will find out later." Neji stated.

"I agree I'm feeling vulnerable sitting here for too long." Sasuke replied.

And with that they left the area, searching for another team to observe. After going around the area the battle was taking place in they continued on their line until they reached a fence containing the forest. From there they climbed up a tree and looked out on the forest. Not too far away was another set of teams engaging in battle. They decided to head over and see what was happening there.

However when they got there they realized this wasn't the case. Naruto watched as Neji talked to them with hand signals. They were about fifty yards away from them, and there were only three of them. Naruto wondered if they had simply already killed the team they were fighting.

They crept silently the last fifty yards til finally they could see the three Shinobi they were after. From what they could tell the three of them were arguing about something. It looked like two of them had started to fight each other and the third had stopped it. From the injuries on the one with the painted face, it looked good that she had.

All three were from the sand. There were two males and one female. The tallest of the males had a red pattern on his face, and was dressed in all black, covering even his head in a hood. The other male was much shorter then the first. And had on brown clothing. His red hair matching a red tattoo on his forehead that said love. On his back he carried a huge container, with a cork at the top to seal it off. It looked odd sitting on his back, it looked like it was huge compared to the small body of the boy.

The girl was short as well, and wore a black shirt and skirt, with fishnets underneath both. On her back she carried a long wide black object. It looked like it would open up, but Naruto wasn't willing to guess yet what it was for. The girl was now in between the other two. And they were now all talking loud enough to be heard.

"Gaara, we must be careful in here, we can't cause too much suspicion before the last exam. We do not need to fight everyone we run across. Especially if they have the same scroll as us. You can not get out of control before the plan can unravel. So lets keep moving towards the tower. We'll take the first people who have the earth scroll and then go straight to the tower. You may be powerful Gaara, but not even you can withstand the rage of the Kazekage." The female Shinobi yelled at the red headed kid.

"Kankurou, Temari, no one will ever know what really happened if I kill you both in here. Be careful the way you talk to me." Gaara replied.

With that Gaara walked off away from Naruto and his teams hiding spot. Temari and Kankurou followed behind him. Naruto sat and waited patiently for them to get far enough away before they talked again.

"That was intense. I wonder what that was about." Sasuke started.

"I'm not sure but the one they called Gaara looked scary, he looked like he had no problem with killing anyone with whom he didn't like. And it seems like we have found the trouble makers. But we should keep an eye out for more of them." Neji stated.

Naruto started in a course staying aware of the projected courses of the three they just saw. They wanted to stay close to them so they could check on their activity but not be too close to attract attention, or miss someone on the other side of a row of ferns. Slowly they kept moving in a pattern closer and closer to the tower in the center. Eventually they had it in sight. However something didn't seem right. It seemed that there must be something else going on. Neji had told Naruto earlier that he felt an extremely large chakra source somewhere in the forest. Also that it wasn't Gaaras'.

As they neared the clearing Naruto knew who the chakra belonged to. He was standing in front of the door to the tower waiting for the first person to get to it. It was time to make a plan.

"I think that person is the person that we were sent in to look for. I don't think that we were supposed to engage them right now though. Do you think there is a chakra barrier around the tower so that you can't fight once your inside?" Sasuke asked.

"I don't think so, most people wouldn't be dumb enough to try, there are people in there that are supervising. That is the only place they are at." Naruto informed them. The Third had told him about the Chuunin Exam a long time ago, sort of something to shoot for.

"Well then what are we going to do about him, I don't think even we three combined can take that man. Maybe we can wait for someone else to come along for him to fight, and then slip in while he's distracted." Naruto suggested.

"I think that would potentially harm one of our friends. Like Sakuras' team, or Hinatas'." Sasuke retorted.

"Maybe we will have to take him on, possibly causing a big enough disturbance right outside of the tower would attract the Jounins upstairs." Naruto said.

"Maybe we can take him guys, I mean we are pretty strong, I think if we could come up with a good enough plan we could do it. It's not like we're really as low as a Genin in skill anymore." Sasuke stated.

"Perhaps your right, I mean if I can get in close enough to stop his tenketsu, then we can even possibly capture him and bring him in to The Third." Neji replied looking somewhat positive about the situation now.

"That's pretty risky if he catches you that close you could be dead in an instant if he is powerful enough. Or even lucky enough." Sasuke stated.

"It's our only plan, and we do have to get inside of that tower and soon. It's going to get ugly in this forest if we're out here when the sun goes all the way down. How do you think we should go about it?" Naruto decided. He thought that if one of them would just commit the rest would follow.

"Well, how about this. Naruto use Kage Bunshin No Jutsu, and hide yourself, sending the clones to die, hopefully keep one or two alive and then the rest will be used to test his skills. Maybe have one go in obviously to see if he's even going to attack. Then as your testing him and making him concentrate on you. Hopefully Neji and I can sneak to opposite sides, and do what we did to Kakashi to him, I mean it worked once, hopefully it can work again." Sasuke offered, but knew it was a weak idea, it was never good to repeat a strategy for a different opponent, they knew that Kakashi had taken it somewhat easy on them.

"I think it's good once, but not twice, we should come up with something else." Neji said, as much as they let Naruto think he was the leader Neji was the best Shinobi on the team right now, his mental awareness and his physical strength made him a unique asset to the team.

Naruto noticed that the guy was now looking in their directions, and it was possibly that they had been spotted already. Meaning it would be hard to surprise him like that.

"I have an idea, but lets stop talking before he hears us, some Shinobi can hear like Kakashi can smell. Just follow my lead and we'll just see from there, this could end up way easier than it's seeming to be." Naruto stated. "Sasuke, activate your Sharingan, and keep an eye out for anything major, if we can catch him trying something long we can hit him while he's concentrating from all around. Head over to the top of that tree over there, it somewhat closer to him then we are. And good for distance attacks like you have. Neji, head over to the right a little bit, and get in the bushes, that will line you up behind him if he charges me. If we're agreed move out."

No one said anything, but all three of them disappeared as they went to their assigned spots. Naruto stood behind a big rock. He formed three shadow clones and then made them look like the three of them.

"Doton: Shinjuu Zanshu No Jutsu." Naruto said quietly as he sank into the ground. Once there he moved through it until he was just about twenty meters below the man by the door. From here he used Kirigakure No Jutsu. Hopefully this would be enough for them to work with.

Sasuke sat hidden in the upper part of a tree that looked out just barely away from directly in front of the door. He could see three of Narutos' clones approaching the Shinobi. To his surprise there was a copy of each of them. Getting an idea of what was going on, Sasuke bagan to prepare to attack. He would be the second piece of bait on the hook. Just what to do.

As Neji watched the clearing from his bush, he wasn't surprised to see a copy of himself approaching the tower. It was however curios that mist was covering the clearing, and they now couldn't see anything.

"Byakugan." Neji whispered, feeling stupid for saying something with no one around to hear it.

Now he could see through the mist just fine. Luckily he could see that the clones had already engaged in a Taijitsu war with the opposing Shinobi, this was his sign to look for Sasuke. He appeared in the corner of his eye, moving trees towards the other side of the man. It was close to attack time.

Naruto's clones were slowly getting stopped one by one. After his initial clones were killed he just kept one from dying and kept making clones. Waiting for the right moment to come back up. Finally his original clone was killed by a kunai. And there was no one left. And Sasuke picked the perfect time to strike.

It seemed like the Shinobi they were fighting had just ignored the mist, hoping the use it as an advantage if needed. So he didn't notice Sasuke had gotten right up close to him.

"Katon: Ryuuka no Jutsu!" Sasuke shouted as a fire lept from his mouth and sprang towards the Shiobi blasting away the mist in the process.

The powerful ninjas' hands were too fast to see as he formed seals with both hands and said, "Doton: Doryuuheki. Before him a huge rock wall was standing blocking the entire flame shot out at him by Sasuke. Luckily this had caused his back to be completely turned. Just as Neji was within feet of the Shinobi he turned around. Dodged to the right and Neji and him were soon locked into another Taijitsu battle. However Neji was much better than Naruto could ever be. He matched the man blow for blow even sealing a few of his teketsu points. Causing great pain, and a lack of chakra. Also making it harder to control his chakra.

Finally the jumped away from each other for a moments reprise. As a distraction to get away Neji threw a single Kunai towards the man.

This by no means was a hard thing to dodge, but as the ninja tried to move his feet he found that they were being held still by some sort of force. When he looked down to see what it was the kunai hit him straight in the chest. Naruto came the rest of the way our of the ground and used a good amount of strength to toss the man in teh direction of Neji who hit it hard one time one the back of the head.

Naruto, Sasuke, and Neji watched as the man fell to the ground and then turned slowly into mud. It was a clone. At some point he had created a clone. Where was he now?

Part 6

Neji was looking around everywhere for the mysterious Shinobi, but it was too late. By the time he found him he was mid attack. His neck was stretching out towards Sasuke. His head bit down hard on teh back of Sasuke's shoulder and then the neck shrunk back down. Before you could even blink the man was right behind Sasuke holding a kunai to his throat.

"Sasuke, I know who you are, and I know what you want. More than friends, more than money, more than fame. You want revenge, against the brother that killed your whole family. Surely you must know that you do not have the strength to do that now. But I can give it to you Sasuke. All you have to do is join me, and I will give you all the power that you want." The man whispered in his ear.

"What is your name Shinobi?" Sasuke replied.

"Orochimaru." The pale man replied, only this close could Sasuke see how pale his skin was, it almost seemed wet, like snake skin. And his eyes were a dark green with slits like a snakes. Sasuke felt fear for the first time since he lost his parents.

"I will not join you Orochimaru. My loyalty will always lie with Konoha." Sasuke replied smugly.

The happy look on Orochimarus' face disappeared. Replacing it was an evil grin, a split tongue briefly stuck out from his lips. He didn't look angry. He looked like someone who knew the battle was already over. "You will come to eventually Sasuke, they always do."

With that Orochimaru disappeared. Leaving no trace of his visit behind. Naruto and his team ran into the tower and followed the directions for opening the scrolls finally. When they were opened Kakashi suddenly appeared in front of them.

"Congratulations you three, you did well making it this far. How did your mission go." Kakashi asked casually when the smoke had cleared.

"We have a lot to report, but if at all possible, I think it would be best to tell to the Hokage himself. It is pretty urgent." Naruto insisted.

Neji had never seen Kakashi get serious faster. What was once the lines of a smile were the lines of a frown. Kakashi replied, "he had already asked me to take you straight there, lets go."

The three of them ran in front of their Jounin leader. Within a few moments they had left the forest and were back in the city. Kakashis' mind was racing while he ran.

_What could have happened that Naruto would want to go straight there. I figured they would find something. Could someone be trying to sabotage the exams. Had anyone died from their village. _

By the time he looked around Kakashi was standing in front of the Hokages' mansion. The four of them entered and ran through the halls towards The Thirds office. On the way they passed Anko, who had been getting ready to head to the tower to take her night shift.

_Why are they in such a hurry, those three must be exhausted. The sun is just about down, and they are already done. From what I had been told they were supposed to try and stay in all three days to observe what was going on. Could they have already found something?_

Anko pushed the thought aside and headed towards the tower, it was going to be a long night, and she needed to keep her mind on what she as doing.

A few moments later the four Shinobi entered The Thirds' office. He was startled to see them coming in so fast, and all out of breath. Especially since they weren't supposed to meet until the end of the third day. Something must have happened.

"Hokage-same, Orochimaru is in the forest!" Naruto burst out.

"What happened Naruto I need to know everything?" The Third replied quickly. He was right things were about to take a turn for the worse.

Naruto, along with the help of Neji, and Sasuke described what had happened in the forest, starting with the Shinobi from the sand and ending with their run in at the tower. The Third did not say one word the whole time. When they were done he sat silently for a moment, trying to keep his mind for going to fast.

"We must assume that he came for more than just Sasuke. Especially with those sand Shinobi talking about plans for teh next part of the exam. It's probably safe to assume that Orochimaru has left the city though. He wouldn't have shown his face this early if he wasn't leaving. He won't strike until the next exam. That gives us one month to plan. Kakashi, alert the tactical squad that I need them up here immediately, the rest of you go home and get some sleep not a word about this to anyone. Naruto you stay here." The Third stated.

Naruto watched as Kakashi, Neji, and Sasuke left the room and headed in their own directions. Then he sat in silence with The Third. Wondering why he had been asked to stay.

"Naruto, we can not stop the Chuunin exam, it would be too big of a give away that we had found something out. So things must continue as they are. But with these new events happening we need to be more careful then ever. As you know next will be the one on one matches. This is the perfect time to attack since if they wait most of the Konoha Shinobi will have had their matches already, and the others will be spectators watching. There are three teams left from Konoha in the forest, hopefully two of them will make it out. I want you to take it easy for a month and keep yourself occupied. I'm going to send Kakashi and Sasuke away for a month to train."

"Why?" Naruto asked, somewhat surprised.

"Orochimaru promised Sasuke power, and if that is what Sasuke really does want than we need to prove that he does not have to leave to gain it. And that the only power he can get from him will cause his downfall. Kakashi will be able to teach him some things that no one else can, and help him to master his Sharingan. I've noticed that he has been doing research in the library on mastering it. Hopefully that will satisfy him for a while so we can get through this in one piece." The Third replied.

"I trust in your judgment Sarutobi-sama. I will work my mind out for the next month to stay sharp. Maybe get some new ideas. I've always wanted to create my own technique, maybe I can do the research for it." Naruto replied, somewhat irritated that Sasuke was going to get special treatment. But he knew he had been his whole life, so there was no reason to be upset.

Once Naruto had finished the tactical team had arrived. So Naruto left and headed to his room. It had been a long day and he was glad to get some rest. And the next month was going to be a tough one. Naruto had never had free time since he decided to be a Shinobi. He didn't know what to do with himself. After he had a cup of tea he passed out in his bed.

Kakashi woke Sasuke up early the next morning. First they went to the edge of town where they reported in to the gate patrol that they were going to be leaving on a one month training mission. That way no one could try and pass of as them while they were gone. Then they headed to a remote part of Konoha, usually not used for anything. There Kakashi sealed the seal on Sasukes' shoulder. Hoping that it would keep it from activating before they knew what to do about it.

They traveled all day and most of the night til they reached the edge of a vast desert mountain range. Where they made camp for the night. When the woke up the next morning Kakashi took them on a path that led deep into the mountains. A back way into the land surrounding the Hidden Village of the Sand. Here they would train, and here Sasuke would get a taste of the power that only Konoha could give him.

"Sasuke, it seems like Orochimaru is after you, we're not sure what he wants yet, but we know he wants you. So The Third felt that we should prepare you for anything. That is why I have brought you out here. I am going to teach you a move that I created, my only original technique, called Chidori. This move is extremely dangerous not only for the person using it, but the person who get his with it." Kakashi began.

"What's so dangerous about it?" Sasuke asked.

"It uses a lot of chakra to use it, and can easily zap all of your energy, leaving you for dead. To do this move you must practice a lot, and you must use the Sharingan. That's another reason why it is dangerous, because using your Sharingan will also drain your chakra, as you know. First watch me do it, and then I will show you how." Kakashi instructed.

Sasuke watched as Kakashi revealed his right eye and stood in a fighting position holding his left arm with his right. Sasuke could see the chakra gathering as Kakashi gathered more and more chakra into his hand, before too long it was a blue crackling wave of energy giving off the sound of birds. Kakashi rushed towards a rock pillar about three yards away and slammed his hand into it. When the smoke cleared there was a giant whole in the pillar going all the way through.

"Ok, so first you assume the fighting position that I was in, you must support your arm with the other one because the weight and power of the chakra in your hand will weigh it down. Then you gather chakra..." Kakashi was cut off.

"With all respect Kakashi-sama, I also have Sharingan and watched you do it the first time, I think I've got it." Sasuke stated bluntly.

"Well then go ahead and try it then if your so tough." Kakashi replied.

Sasuke stood in position and starting to gather the chakra in his palm. After a long few minutes the chakra finally started to show its self and make that chirping sound he was looking for. Sasuke rushed towards the rock in front of him and slammed his fist in to hard. When the smoke had cleared he had caused damage, but not as much as Kakashi had.

"Well you've got it in basics, now we will spend the next three days building your stamina to the attack, and making it so that you can do it more and more. Our goal is to get your limit up to three, that's what mine is." Kakashi informed.

"What happens if you use it more than three times?" Sasuke asked.

"You don't use it more than three times, do you understand me Sasuke." Kakashi said, his voice had gotten really serious and Sasuke knew to listen to his words.

"I personally was not sure if you were ready for this move or not, but the higher ups decided that my opinion didn't matter. So we are going to be very careful with it. Do not use it during your match unless you absolutely have to. The only one I think you would need to use it for is Gaara." Kakashi replied.

"What if I face Naruto?" Sasuke asked.

"If your facing Naruto you will not have a chance to use this move, you may not think it of him, but Naruto is stronger than anyone in the village. He just doesn't know it yet." Kakashi replied.

The training went on for the whole month. The final exams were the next day and finally Sasuke and Kakashi were headed home.

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So there it is the prologue to the story. I decided that I wanted to spend some time on the matches for the last exam and that is going to be my first maybe even the first few chapters in the story. But expect a lot of twists and turns, I'm going to introduce some romances and some other little twists. Let me know what you think.


	2. Chapter 1

So I kinda rushed through this chapter as well, I had started it right after finishing the prelude, but had been putting it off for a while. It seems kinda long to be, but a lot happens. And I'm finally to the part where I'll start revealing my changes to the plot. So be happy about that.

Disclaimer: I do not own, nor know any one who owns Naruto.

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Chapter 1

Naruto walked into the arena where the one on one matches of the Chuunin exam were going to take place. He was nervous about his match, because he wasn't sure who he was going to be fighting. No matter what he felt that he was ready, so maybe being a little nervous was ok.

He had already found Neji, and was glad to see that one other team made it out of the forest and onto the next exam. The team was led by Kurenai, she was the villages best Genjitsu user. Naruto could remember when he had been taught by her about Genjitsu. He had tried so hard to be able to do them, but failed everytime. At least he could get out of them now.

Her team consisted of Sakura, Hinata, and Kiba. It certainly surprised Naruo that they had made it this far, because most of the teams will all boys didn't make it, let alone one with two girls on it. Naruto was impressed with their teamwork and power.

He wondered if he was going to have to fight one of them in the match. But he doubted it. He had heard that they had released who was fighting who weeks ago, but had decided that he didn't want to know who he was fighting.

"Hey Sakura, Hinata, Kiba, congratulations on making it to the last part of the exam. Do you guys know who your fighting?" Naruto asked

"Well it turns out that the team from the Hidden Village of the Rain were killed in a mission last week, it's unfortunate to hear." Kiba stated.

"Hm, so who are you guys going to be fighting?" Naruto asked.

"Well The Third got together with his staff and they decided that it wasn't fair to make us face each other, especially sicne one wouldn't have to fight. So they decided to take into account what we had been able to do in the first two exams and decide from there. He told us he would let us know after the final match today." Kiba said.

"Do you know who your fighting Naruto?" Hinata asked.

"I don't want to know, it's better that way, but I'm hoping that it's Gaara, he seemed to be the strongest to make it. If not, I'm not sure, there is Kankurou, and Temari, his brother and sister left, both must be strong." Naruto replied.

And with that it was time to begin.

"Thank you all for coming out today, to watch the last part of this years Chuunin exam." The Third Hokages' voice boomed over the stadium. "I'd like to introduce our special gues the Kazekage from the Hidden Village of the Sand."

The Third waited for the nose to die back down. "Now we shall begin the matches. Due to injuries, both during the exam and after, only two teams are remaining to compete. One from Konoha, and one from the Sand. Let the matches begin."

"The first match will be Uzumaki Narutp Versus Temari." The referee stated.

Naruto and Temari lined up across from each other. Naruto knew that she was a wind user. He had been giving a few briefings on the Shinobi from the sand and was ready to fight all of them. He just had not expected to fight her.

He knew that he had to get close to her to stop her from using the wind, but how to do it. He knew that people were there to watch the Gaara fight for the most part. So he knew that they wouldn't be too dissapointed if he ended it quickly. But how.

Naruto's thoughts were interrupted when Temari decided that it was time to attack. Temari raished her fan and took one big swing towards Naruto. A giant gust of wind seemed to fill the arena. Chakra filled bursts of air rushed towards Naruto. But he was already on the move. His hands were a blur as he formed seals.

"Katon: Housenka No Jutsu!" Naruto yelled as he fired five fireballs at Temari.

Temari swung her fan in front of her and used it as a shield to block the two that she couldn't dodge. She had underestimated his strength already. She ran towards an outcropping of trees and hid behind them. She needed a minute to come up with a strategy.

Naruto watched as the girl evaded his attacks as she moved towards the trees. Finally she dissapered behind one of them. Satisfied that he knew about where she was now he could think.

_I could probably end this right now using a shadow clone to attack her and while she's distracted hide until I can immobolize her. But Sarutobi told me that these matches were more than just an exam, this was also political. So I shouldn't beat her immediately._

Finally Naruto had it. He slowly walked in a circle around the area she was hidden, starring at one tree the whole time. When he got a little closer he threw three kunai, one hit the direct center of the tree and to other two grazed it on either side. With no reaction from Temari he moved closer. Until he was right at the edge of the trees.

"Kage Bunshin No Jutsu." Naruto said softly.

Around the trees a line of shadow clones appeared completely surrounding the few trees in front of him. Temari was trapped now, and he was just going to make the circle smaller and smaller until she came out. Slowly each Naruto took a step foreward step by step the circle got smaler. And Temari knew that she was running out of time. She needed to do something now.

Suddenly half of the clones dissapered and the circle of clones had her trapped, she had no where to go. Temari watched as each Naruto clone took out a kunai and threw it at her. Without thinking she forced a gust of wind upwards and leaped onto her fan, letting the wind carry her above the attack and away from the clones. Just as she reached the heigth of the heighest tree near her she looked down. All of the clones had dissapeared and she couldn't see Naruto at all.

The next thing she saw was Naruto coming out of a tree just below her and jump straight up, he was trying to knock her off of the fan. Temari only had time to move her course a little bit before he reached her. In one move he tipped the fan upside down hurling her towards the ground, following her course directly was a single kunai, that connected with her just before she hit the ground. The match was over. Naruto had won.

The crowd watching the match sat in silence, not quite sure if they should cheer or boo. The match had only taken a few short moments before it was over. After a moment of hesitation however teh crowd erupted in applause.

"The next match is going to be Sasuke versus Gaara," the referee stated.

"This wasn't supposed to happen. Now temari is too tired to take place in the attack. Gaara, you must defeat Sasuke in time, or we won't stand a chance." Kankurou whispered.

Gaara didn't reply, he simply walked towards his spot on the field. His eyes flared and anyone who noticed could easily tell he planned on killing Sasuke.

"Begin." The referee stated.

Unlike with Narutos' battle this one was quick to start. Sasuke had dissapeared in a flash of smoke and reappeared right behind Gaara and tried to throw a kunai at him from short range. As he expected sand reached up and guarded Gaara without him even moving a finger. However, Sasuke had expected this and had suddenly dissapeared again this time he appeared in front of Gaara but about ten meters away from him, his hands had already finished making seals by the time he was visible.

"Katon: Housenka No Jutsu." Sasuke said, but the sound was drowned out by the several fire balls he spat towards Gaara.

Gaara's sand protected him once again and Sasuke began to run around in a cirlce, gaining speed quickly. His speed was so fast that he was soon just a blur in the shape of a circle trapping Gaara in the milddle. After a few seconds the circle changed to a line and suddenly Gaara flew across the room, and slammed into the barrier of the arena.

Sasuke looked at Gaara and was dissapointed to see that he had been caught by his sand once again. But it was a damaging attack none the less and Gaara began to bleed slightly from his mouth. Gaara stood up and formed one seal with his hands, and watched Sasuke dissapear as a ball of sand surrounded him. Standing in front of the ball Sasuke can see a little eye formed out of sand. He assumed that Gaara would be using it to see him attacking.

Sasuke rushed towards the ball of sand planning to attack it with a hard punch, but right as he was about to connect spikes of hardened sand erupted from the ball almost impaling Sasuke. Sasuke was able to dodge the attack and quickly tried a few more times, each one ending the same way.

Suddenly Sasuke stopped attacking and stood very still about twenty meters away. Holding his left arm with his right to stabalize it he bagan to gather the chakra. After only a moment the crowd could see the blue chakra sizzling in his hand, and hear the sound of birds chirping. Only a few knew what this move was, and all watched with intense eyes as Sasuke ran towards Gaara. As he got within a few meters Gaara tried to counter attack using more sand spikes. But Sasuke had activated his Sharingan and easily dodged each one, and slammed his fist into the ball of sand. Sasuke could feel his fist pushing into the sand, and it suddenly stopped.

He stood there with his fist stuck in the sand for several moments, waiting to see what Gaara would do to retaliate. He could feel that his hand was wrapped around Gaara's throat. Suddenly he could hear screaming from inside, Gaara was seeing his blood, and it wasn't making him happy.

Sasuke started to charge up his Chidori one more time to escape the ball when Gaara released his hold and lunged a giant arm out of the sand.

Naruto was watching Kankurou and Temari standing on the sidelines. When the arm appeared they began to look very worried. Something was happening, and Naruto didn't like it. He decided he better be ready for battle, and he instructed Neji to do the same.

Sasuke was looking directly at the ball of sand as it began to crack and fall away, revealing Gaara standing still surrounded by a thick line of his sand. His eyes looked enraged and Sasuke could feel his killing intent scratching at his skin.

In the stands a man dressed up like Konoha ANBU silently initiated a Genjitsu, putting everyone in the arena to sleep. However, Naruto, Neji, Sakura, Kakashi, Gai, as well as the two in the arena fighting and the two Kage's watching were able to dispell it before they fell asleep.

"It's beggining, lets move." Naruto whispered to Neji.

In a flash Naruto and Neji were standing next to Kakashi.

"Kakashi-sama, look smoke where the Hokage is." Naruto said quickly.

But an ANBU member appeared right after, "we'll go back up the Hokage you guys stay here and protect the arena with second squad." And just as quickly as he appeared him and three others dissapeared.

As soon as they were gone four others appeared in front of them, four were dressed in the attire of Sound Ninja, and one was cloaked in a Konoha ANBU uniform and mask, the ANBU has been infiltrated.

Naruto, Neji, and Gai were all attacked by a Sound ninja and Kakashi was attacked by the other two. After quickly defeated the unmasked man they were all engaged in a fearsome one on one battle.

Sasuke stood down on the battle field and watched as Kankurou and Temari appeared standing next to Gaara. Then one more Sand shinobi appeared, and told them to take Gaara away. After the three of them dissapeared Sasuke was ordered to follow them. And the referee offered to take care of the last remaining Sand ninja.

After a few moments Naruto and Neji had taken care of their Sound ninja and were gazing up at the top of the Hokages' viewing box. Inside of a barrier were two men, the two Kages, and the Sands Kazekage was standing behind Sarutobi with a knife to his throat. This had gotten serious. All around them they could hear the sounds of battle. Behind them Sakura left the building through a hole in the wall and left to deliver a message to the instructors at the Academy. They must get the students to a safe place.

"Naruto, you and Neji take Shikamaru and follow Sasuke, once you reach him, help him defeat Gaara, and his two siblings and retreat to somewhere safe and wait for further instructions, be very careful, this is the real deal, and an A Rank mission." Kakashi paused for a moment and slid his hand down his kunai, and then slammed his open hand onto the ground. "Kuchiyose no Jutsu, Naruto take Pakkun with you to track Sasuke."

In a flash Naruto had woken up Shikimaru and they all dissapeared into out the same hole in the wall Sakura had used. As they dashed after Sasuke they could see the carnage taking place around them. Several Ninja at the border of the city were fighting off monsterous snakes, and along the way they heard that over one hundred Sand shinobi had infiltrated the village.

Sarutobi stood still as the ninja behind him slowly walked away and took off the mask he was wearing, revealing him self as Orochimaru. Sarutobi had a good feeling that he was behind this and wasn't surprised. After a few more moments they two began their fight.

Beggining first with a few Taijitsu moves the two moved apart from each other and The Third began to form seals at lightning speed.

"Doton: Doryuu Taiga." Sarutobi said, suddenly appearing behind Orochimaru, the ground below his opponent suddenly turned to mud and rushed towards Orochimaru, forcing him down the slope of the roof.

Orochimaru quickly began to form seals of his own, but The Third was too quick and had already prepared another attack. "Doton: Doryuudan," he shouted as the head of a dragon appeared in the mud and fired three balls of mud towards his opponent, wasting no time he quickly said, "Karuudan." Which launched a flame out of his mouth turning the balls of mud into flaming balls of fire. At the last moment Orochimaru sunk into the roof below him and dodged the attack.

The four ANBU watching marveled in The Thirds ability to use multiple elements together, it was times like this the village was reminded just how powerful the normally calm and reserved Hokage was.

"I think you have underestimated me Sarutobi."

Sarutobi threw off his Hokage uniform and revealed his brown and black battle uniform he wore beneath. Below the two Ninja's the roof tiles began to crumble as they both gathered up their chakra, preparing for the next wave of attacks. With lightning fast moves they ran towards each other closing the ten meter gap between them. The Third threw a shuriken towards Orochimaru and began to form seals.

"Shuriken, Kagebunshin No Jutsu!" The Third shouted and the shuriken suddenly cloned itself as it sped towards Orochimaru.

However he was ready with a counter attack and had started forming seals at the same time. Just before the multiple ninja stars impacted he finished his seals and shouted, "Kuchitose: Edo Tensei," as two coffins rose from the ground blocking them. One more began to rise out of the ground and Sarutobi had to concentrate his chakra on it to stop it from rising.

He knew what the coffins contained and the pure idea frightened him to the core. After a moment the doors of the coffins dropped off revealing their contents. Two men, one dressed in red and black with black hair, and one dressed in blue and black with white hair. Before The Third stood the first two Konoha Hokages. This battle had suddenly turned from bad to worse.

The two men stepped foreward out of the coffins. And began to speak to Sarutobi. However he was too involved with his thoughts to pay attention. Before him were the two Hokage's who had worked so hard to make Konoha what it is today. Sarutobi began to tremble and fought back the tears he felt gathering. The Third didn't know if he had the strength to fight off his old friends.

At this point Naruto, Neji, and Shikamaru were closing in on Sasuke. They were still failry far away but Pakkun could tell that they were getting close. They changed directions slightly and pushed foreward.

"Increase your speed, we are being followed, I count eight, no nine behind us and closing fast. They will be playing it safe, so as not to fall into an ambush, but we still must hurry." Pakkun stopped in his tracks. "Everyone follow your footsteps backwards, hopefully this will buy us some time."

As soon as they had finished the jumped back into the trees and started pursuing Sasuke once more. They had lost a little time, and after a few moments Pakkun notified them that their pursuers were still gaining on them, their trick hadn't worked. They continued rushing foreward, trying to decide what to do about the threat from behind.

"We only have one option, a feint ambush, one of us will have to stay behind and make it look like an ambush, and while they are looking being too careful that person will trap them, and stop them." Shikamaru stated. "Who will stay behind, Pakkun is needed to find Sasuke, Nejis' eyes are needed in case we are being ambushed, Naruto, you have the best chance of stopping Sasuke, so it must be me."

"Understood, be careful Shikamaru, and be sure to catch up when you can." Pakkun stated, determined not to Sasuke get too far ahead of them.

The three of them continued pushing themselves to run faster to make up the lost ground. Behind them Shikimaru hid behind a tree and waited for the ninja to stumble across some fake footprints that he had made. Once they had he used his Kagemane no Jutsu to hold them still.

_There are only eight of them here. The ninth must have been their escort that would follow behind to help them in this instance. I need to at least fing out where he is._

He drew four kunai's from his pouch and hurled them at the eight in front of him. From a tree in front of him a hidden ninja used his own kunai to block the attack, giving up his position.

"Here you will die you brat. I can't believe that you thought that you could stop us. You've reached your limit, there is no way out of this." One of the pursuing Sound Ninja said. He watched as Shikamarus' shadow receaded from his own, and he regained control of his body. "Come on out."

The eight men waited for their comrade to come out of his hiding spot. But when a giant Konoha Ninja appeared behind Shikamaru they got worred. Within moments he had defeated the nine of them, and saved Shikamaru.

"Asuma-sama, thank you."

"You did good Shikamaru, but you'll have to retire from this mission for now. You don't have enough chakra to be useful. Head back to the village and find a safe place to hide." Asuma replied back.

Sasuke had finally caught up to the three Sand ninja, but by the time he had realized it he was dodging explosions caused by the traps they had left for him. After several close calls he started running to catch back up to them.

The battle between The Third Hokage and Orochimaru was still raging on. Orochimaru incerted two tage, one into each of their heads. And the conversation between the past and present Hokages was over. The battle was going to resume, and it was going to be harder than ever.

Slowly the two reincarnated Hokages walked towards Sarutobi, then suddenly dashed foreward. Sending kunai and shuriken flying at him, although he quickly dodged them he was forced to avoid an onslaught of kicks and punches, knowing one away and latching onto the others leg to throw him towards the other he managed to get them far enough away to perform a ninjitsu. His hands flashed in movement and he sucked in a deep breath.

"Katon: Karyuu Endon. The Third stated as he moved his hands towards his mouth, and launched a giant flame towards his two friends.

The two ninjas jumped back and blocked the attack momentarily, when The Seconds hands moved in retaliation. "Suiton: Suijinheki." he said as water blasted up from beneath the glame and extinguished it. After a moment the water had dissapeared, and The Second slammed his hands together placing his elbows parralell to the ground and his hands together as if he was going to bow. "Suiton: Suishouha!"

A whirlwind of water appeared and launched itself towards The Third. With no time to spare The Third flew into action and countered, "Doton: Doryuuheki." In front of him rose a giant mud wall that redirected the crashing water around the wall, the force was still enough to cause his balance to falter. He jumped up onto the wall, The First came flying towards him as Sarutobi launched another slew of fireballs towards him. However The First dodged the attacks nimbly and assaulted The Thirds Face with two roundhouse kicks. Sarutobi went flying backwards into a puddle. Where he had a moment to regain his composure. Just in time to see The First using his secret technique.

"Mokuton Hijutsu." The First said as enormous roots sprouted from the yellow tiles beneath them.

As he watched the roots come up Sarutobi bit his finger and prepared to use a summoning technique. But The First was already starting another attack. "Jukai Kouton." He said, causing the roots to flower into a forest that engulfed the whole battlefield. Sarutobi jumped from branch to branch dodging the onslaught of tree branches. However he was not quick enough and was soon restrained by two roots wrapped around his feet waist and neck.

Pakkun, Naruto, and Neji could finally see Sasuke ahead of them, and barely visible the sand ninja in front of him.

"Kuchiyose no Jutsu." Sarutobi said as he reached down and planted his old hand on a tree branch close to him. Out of the tree branch came A giant guerilla. White hair streamed down his face. He jumped down a branch and gazed at the opponents in front of him.

"Enma, please help me get out of here." Sarutobi begged.

Within seconds Enma had transformed into a long black staff with gold trim at each end. Orochimaru took in a deep breath and opened his mouth wide, revealing a snake's head creeping out of his mouth. Out of the snake Orochimaru pulled his sword. Sarutobi used the staff to attack Orochimaru, using it's ability to grow at will to keep him at a distance. But before he could gain the upper hand the first and second Hokage's attacked him. As each one was close enough he planted a tag on the back of their legs, right before he was forced to the ground by a foot to the face.

Orochimaru paced towards the fallen man. Standing over him he clutched the front of Sarutobi's shirt. And started to laugh. He began to think that he had the upper hand. Tears began to well up in Sarutobi's eyes and one fell gracefully down his cheek. In one quick move Sarutobi used his leg to buckle Orochimaru's knee as he extended his hand and connected with his face, knocking him away, just as a giant arm flew out of the staff and grabbed Orochimaru by the neck. Determined to make the most out of his boughten time he activated the tags on the legs of the reincarnated Hokages, blowing one of each of their legs off.

Unfortunately the move only stunned them, as their legs gathered back together and they stood back up. He had escaped the last attack, but he was no closer to victory. He needed help to defeat this man.

Naruto kicked off a thick tree branch and soared ahead of the others, within a few moments he had caught up with Sasuke.

"Sasuke, we need to go back, the Hokage is in trouble and we need to save him. We must stop them quickly. Follow my lead." Naruto instructed.

"Ok," was Sasukes' simple reply.

They slowed the pace just enough for Neji to catch back up. Neji informed that that Pakkun had retreated, saying that they were close enough, and he would be of no use in battle.

"Neji we have to end this quickly, lets pick up our pace and catch up." Naruto explained quickly.

The three of them rushed foreward, they could see the three Sand ninja looming in front of them. It seemed like they were going to allow them to catch up finally. Careful not to get too close the three Konoha ninja's moved into position. Their only chance was to catch them by surprise and get them all at once. They positioned themselves in a loose line slowly spreading out until they had the three ninja cornered.

"If you think that you can stop us you have another thing coming. We will defeat you three right now and make this much easier." Kankurou stated bluntly.

But Naruto had no plans of allowing her to distract them with words. He threw down two smoke bombs and used the distraction to create a shadow clone, as he dropped down a few branches and concealed himself below the tree the three Sand ninja stood on. Taking advantage of the distraction supplied by Naruto Sasuke launched himself towards the three opposing ninja, as Neji did the same from the other side.

Kakurou twitched his hand and sent his puppet towards Sasuke. The puppets brown body was a blur as it rushed towards the blue clad Uchiha. The puppet shot foreward a round of posion needles towards Sasuke. Each one of them hit it's mark perfectly. However a puff of smoke appeared and a log was left in it's place, attached to it was an exploding tag which went off soon after it was spotted. The explosion barely eve reached them but it was only mean to be a distraction.

Naruto had hoped that they had caught up before Gaara had had time to recover much chakra, and before Temari had rested enough to fight again. But Temari was able to swing her giant fan towards the approaching Hyuuga, throwing him backwards. Neji landed sidways on the trunk of a tree and immediately pushed off of it and hurled himself back at her, throwing two kunai at her at the same time. The speed at which they were thrown was just fast enough to get to her before she could block, and she took both of them in her shoulders, pinning her to a tree. Naruto's shadow clone chose this moment to launch itself into battle, he flew towards Gaara with a fuma shuriken from his back. Just as he released it he was hit by Gaara's sand and the clone was distroyed. But the shuriken flew straight and true. Inches before it reached Gaara however his sand was able to block that as well.

Neji seeing what Naruto had been planning used this moment to his advantage. He wuickly jumped off of the tree he landed on just below the Sand ninja and landed right in the middle of the three of them. Using his soft palm fighting style he quickly attacked.

His first three strikes sealed up Temari's Tekketsu points, taking her out of the battle. The next two struck the wrapped up package on Kankurou's back. He had used his Byukagen to see through the wraps earlier and had realized that it was really Kankurou inside. Having sealed off his chakra as well he turned to attack Gaara. Although Neji's movements were quick, Gaaras' sand was faster, and easily blocked his attacks, and held onto Neji's hands.

Finally seeing his opening Naruto Jumped up from his hiding spot and appeared directly behing Gaara, having gotten to close to Gaara for his sand to attack. He quickly gathered chakra into his hand and transformed it into an electric pulse right as his hand connected with Gaaras' neck. although this would have usually killed him Naruto had not had enough practice with this move and was only able to knock him out.

"Good job guys, lets get them back to the village quickly and go help The Third." Naruto stated.

Each of them picked up one of the Sand shinobi. During the time before the last part of the Chuunin exam Narutos' team had been given a briefing about the San Ninja, from what they used to attack, down to their aparent weaknesses. They had also been told that if anything were to happen during the exam, they were to capture the three of them for interrogation afterwards.

Kakashi and Gai had finally driven off the last of the Sound shinobi and headed towards the fight between Orochimaru and The Third. As they headed there they saw Naruto, Neji, and Sasuke rushing towards the same place. Glad to see that they had accomplished their mission. he hurried to meet back up with them.

"We have to find a way to help The Third. But there is no way to get rid of that barrier." Kakashi said hurridly.

"That's fine if we destroy the barrier then Orochimaru can get reinforcements as well. We don't have time to deal with more fighting.. And I have an idea. Follow me." Naruto said.

The five of them rushed down to the bottom of the building and broke through the few ninja's there to oppose him. After a few floors of stairs they were directly below where the two men were fighting.

"Orochimaru, I think that you have vastly overestimated your abilities, and underestimated my village. We've known for a while that you planned this. And I assure you that you will fail."

Orochimarus' face turned red with rage and he rushed in to attack. At the same moment his two reincarnated pawns did the same. In a flash Sarutobi had taken back up his staff and enlarged it to over two meters long. And swung it in a wide cirlce smashing it into the heads of the first and second Hokages. The force was enough to destroy the tags in each of them, and their bodies fell to the ground. Orochimaru's anger had created an opening. And now it was time to take this battle back.

"Senei Jashuu." Orochimaru said softly as he lifted his arm up and pointed it at The Third. Out of his sleeves flew three snakes all heading directly towards the Third.

Side stepping just enough to dodge the first one he shortened his staff and knocked the other two away which both bit into branches on either side of him, momentarily locking him into place.

Choosing this moment to unleash his plan, Naruto gave Kakashi the signal, and all of a sudden a blue flash erupted from beneath the tile and gaping hole appeared. Out of the hole Sasuke, Naruto, Kakashi, Neji, and Gai jumped out. Without hesitating Gai rushed towards Orochimaru, as Kakashi ran around him to flank him from the other side. Activating his Sharingan Kakashi rushed in as well, but stopped a few meters short to let Gai engage first. Orochimaru and Gai were barely visible as blow after blown was thrown, when finally Orochimaru made a mistake and over extended a punch. Side stepping the punch Gai swung his left leg into Orochimaru's gut doubling him over, and putting him in position for a straight upper cut to his face, sending him flying towards Kakashi who with a series of quick moves caught Orochimaru and dug three kunai into his body, piercing both of his shoulders.

But Orochimaru had been ready and in a puff of smoke he dissapeared and a log was left in his place. Wasting no time Orochimaru took up his sword and slashed at Kakashi. Luckily he had his Sharingan activated, and that gave him enough time to pull out his short katana, and block the attack. Using his other hand he threw a feint punch at Orochimaru's head, when he ducked he looped his hand behind his opponents neck and pulled his head right in front of his own. And instantly trapped Orochimaru in a Genjitsu, then retreated backwards to allow one of his allies to take over.

It only took a moment for Orochimaru to break the attack, and he had plenty of time to see Naruto charging at him full speed.

"I had heard you were a strong ninja Naruto, but I see you lack discipline." Orochimaru said as he stepped foreward and caught both of Naruto swinging arms.

Opening his mouth Orochimaru launched a snake that grabbed onto Naruto's face with it's fangs. At the exact moment that the snake's fangs were taking hold Neji was moving into action. Quickly positioning himself hehind Naruto he ran foreward and thrust his palm through the dissapearing shadow clone and connected squarely with Orochimarus' chest, killing him instantly.

A few moments of silence lapsed as the six of them reflected on what had just happened. As they sat in silence they looked out on the village, and saw that the ninja of Konoha and driven off both the Sound and the Sand ninja's. The battle was over, and Orochimaru was defeated.

"Naruto, Neji, Sasuke, Kakashi, and Gai. I could never repay you for what you have done today. You have helped to save the village, as well as save me. Konoha owes you five a great deal of respect. And I owe you my life." The Third began.

"Hokage-sama, we did as we knew was necessary. What we were trained to do, and what you asked us to do, this village does not owe us anything, and neither do you." Naruto stated, tears flowing down his cheeks. He had almost lost the closest thing he had to a father today, and that fact was just sinking in.

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So there it is. I know that some of you may not be happy that I've killed of Orochimaru already, but it was necessary to do in order to make the story the way I wanted it. The next chapter is probably going to have a lot less action, and a lot more talking, but it has to happen eventually, all reviews are welcome and I hope to hear from any one reading this, so let me know what you think of it. Later.


	3. Chapter 2

Here it is my next chapter. It's a little shorter than usual, but I wasn't really too into the chapter, it serves more as a filler to get the plot moving, I hope you enjoy.

Disclaimer: I do not own, nor know anyone who does own Naruto.

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Chapter 2

A couple days had passed and the village was getting back to normal. Naruto, Sasuke, and Neji were all elevated to Chuunin rank and split up. There had been a huge ceremony for them, seeing as they not only stopped Gaara and his siblings, allowing them to be captured. They were also able to save the Hokage. Naruto felt happy. He was going to ask Sarutobi if he would allow for him to take the Jounin exam in another month. But thought he should wait for a little while.

"Naruto I'm very happy with the way that you all performed during the Chuunin exam. I'm going to be giving you three all a week off before I assign you your teams. Because I need you three to be at least somewhat avtive you will be recieving Genin that didn't make it through the Chuunin exam. Think about who you might like to have and let me know." The Third told Naruto over lunch.

"Thank you very much Sarutobi, I'll think about it. Will you train with me for a little while later today. I want to spar and Neji and Sasuke are already sparing each other, and Kakashi refuses to after the last time." Naruto replied.

"Well you did break his leg in two places Naruto." The Third retorted.

"That's true, I mean I don't blame him but it doesn't leave me a whole lot of people to spar." Naruto explained. "And it was his fault, he did challenge me."

"Well we do have those three Sand ninja still captive, I bet Gaara would spar you." Sarutbi stated, letting a small grin pass over his face. He could see that Naruto was dissapointed. "Yes, Naruto meet me at training ground three around four."

"Thanks Sarutobi, I will be there." Naruto stated.

Naruto finished eating and went outside, he was going to go walk around the village and see what was going on. Maybe talk to a few of his friends, and see who he could work well with. As he walked down the streets he enjoyed looking at all the merchants. Tables of ripe fruit, green vegtables, amazing statues, all of which tempted his pocket book.

However he knew he needed to buy new supplies and that's where he decided to head, most likely he would run into someone worth seeing. He liked the cool air he felt inside of the shop. Looking around he picked upthe few things that he needed. Ten kunai, a new sharpening rock, twenty shuriken, fifteen explosive tags. And a few other miscellaneous things. On his way to the counter to pay he ran into Shikamaru, who looked like he was also getting his supplies for the next couple of missions.

"Hey Shikamaru, what are you up to?" Naruto asked.

"Picking up some troublesome items. My dad told me that I needed to get more supplies. He says I may be given a new squad because of the recent attack. So he said I should be prepared. But I don't think he was telling me, he's so whipped by my mother." Shikamaru replied.

"Well, it's not official yet, but I'm being given a team most likely at the end of this week, I'm supposed to go over all the shinobis' stats from the Chuunin exams and pick three that I think would be a good team. How would you feel about being on my team?"

"I think it would be troublesome to be on a team without Chouji we work really well together." Shikamaru answered.

"Well I'll keep that in mind." Naruto stated as he payed the shop owner.

Naruto walked out of the store thinking about his team. He was excited for the chance to lead. But he knew the only reason Shikamaru wasn't a Chuunin was because he was lazy. Shikamaru did what he had to do of course, and Naruto knows he is much smarter than he is. Chouji has always been with Shikamaru. And they did work very well together. His team had worked with Shikamarus' during a mission, and saw it first hand. That would be two people, but who else could he use.

Shino would be a good choice, but he liked to be more solitary. And from what he heard he was already being sent out n his own missions, some as high as A Rank. Naruto knew he would miss having a Hyuuga around, he wouldn't have been able to stop Orochimaru, or Gaara without Neji. And Sasuke could never be replaced.

_Maybe it would be better to just keep the group together. We already work so well together and they have become my family. It's going to be hard to learn to work together with different people all over again._

However Naruto knew that it must happen eventually. Considering he had wanted to join ANBU for a while now, and he knew that Sasuke still just wanted revenge, no matter how much he hid it. So once again the problem came down to who else to pick. He knew that Shikamaru would take some of the weight away from him, and Chouji has the musscle to deal with the bigger ninjas, who he sometimes had a harder time with.

As he walked down the road towards training ground three he could see two people already there training. It was Kiba and Hinata. Hinata was still pretty shy, but during the attack on Konoha something awoke in her and she became a very reliable shinobi.

Naruto watched for a few moments, the battle looked like it had been going for a while. He watched as Kiba and Arakamaru spun their bodies towards Hinata. But with her Byukagen she easily evaded their attack. She had been working with him long enough to know his weaknesses.

With one swift swing she connected with Kiba's arm and sealed his Tekketsu hole that gave him his chakra in his right arm. The spinning while she ducked under Arakamaru she reached up and behind her sealing two of his holes as well. The battle had been won, and surprisingly to Naruto, the winner had been Hinata.

Once the dust settled down Hinata re-opened their Tekketsu holes and they sat in the shade under a tree. Naruto approached them from the path and waved hello.

"I saw the end of that match, well done Hinata, I was surprised to see that you've improved this much." Naruto comlimented. "I'm not sure how you dodged that, Kiba seemed to be moving so fast."

"Thanks Naruto." Hinata replied, her cheeks turning slightly red.

"What are you up to Naruto?" Kiba asked.

"I'm meeting The Third here in a little while to spar. You guys are welcome to stick around and watch." Naruto replied.

"Wow, your going to spar with The Third! That's amazing, I didn't think you were that good. Although I have heard rumors that you made Chuunin and are getting your own team soon." Kiba said stubbornly.

"Well, it's not for sure yet, but I have made Chuunin, I'm just not sure if I'm really going to pick a team, or if I'm going to request to join a team of Chuunins. I'm supposed to be picking a team if I want one though. That's kinda why I watched your match." Naruto admitted.

"You really are amazing Naruto." Hinata said, her cheeks turning a darker shade of red.

As she finished they could see The Third making his way down the path. It had been a while since Naruto had arrived and he had begun wondernig if he was going to be late.

"Good afternoon Hokage-sama." Hinata said, he voice barely audible. It was obvious that she was still a little intimidated by his presence.

"Are you two going to watch Naruto and I's match?" The Third asked.

"I'm going to watch Naruto get his butt kicked. I can't believe you'd waste your time with him." Kiba said.

"Your shrewd speech is a waste Kiba. Why don't you fight Naruto instead, I think he'll surprise you." The Third suggested. Once again letting a slight smirk show.

"Sure why not, it'll be a piece of cake." Kiba accepted.

Naruto knew what The Third was doing and was happy to get the chance to shut the kid up. Kiba removed his jacket and called Arakamaru to his side. Naruto loved to fight Kiba because it was twice the work out. The way that he uses his pet is amazing, and Naruto often wondered if it would be possible for him to use an animal at some point.

Naruto didn't really care about training anymore, so he decided to defeat Kiba quickly, making sure that he got the point. He watched as Kiba whispered into his dogs ear. At least he had a plan.

"Kage Bunshin no Jutsu." Naruto said silently.

Over twenty forms of Naruto suddenly appeared all around Kiba. With one move Naruto had at least trapped him. All twenty of them leaped into the air and threw a shuriken. "Kage Shuriken no Jutsu." Echoed through the trees as all twenty of them turned their one ninja star into three. There was no escape and five of them landed directed in Kibas' chest. The battle was over already.

Hinata picked up Kiba and helped him bandage himself up. Naruto had at least hoped he would be a challenge. Shikamaru and Chouji would be ok in A Rank missions, but Kiba could get himself killed easily. So who else could he choose.

After Kiba and Hinata left Naruto turned to The Third and picked his team. "Sarutobi I think I've picked a team."

"And who is that. I didn't expect you to make your decision so quickly." The Third replied.

"Shikamaru, Chouji, and Hinata." Naruto said confidently.

"A good choice. They will compliment you very well. But why Chouji, Shikamaru is very intelligent, Hinata is obviously to replace Neji. Why Chouji?" The Third asked, simply to see his reasoning.

"Shikamaru works wel with Chouji, and they trust each other in combat. Chouji may seem undriven, and weaker than other shinobi like Kiba, but in all reality he is stronger than us all." Naruto replied, feeling surprised at The Thirds' question.

"Good answer, it seems like you've given your team some consideration. I'll make get the paperwork over with and you will start in..." The Third was interrupted by someone running up to them screaming at The Hokage.

"Hokage-sama we have a problem. Atasuki has been spotted in the village, Uchia Itachi almsost murdered Sasuke, and Kakashi was caught in the Mangekyou Sharingan and is now uncouncious. Luckily Gai interrupted the fight and drove them off. It seemed like they were after Naruto." A young messanger spat out in one breath.

"Naruto head to the hospital and guard Kakashi, I'll be there after I've spoken to Gai." The Third instructed.

Naruto rushed to the hospital and ran directly to Kakashis' room. He had visited him there many times and he always requested the same room that over looked the direction of the cemetary. Long ago Naruto had blown up on Kakashi about always being late, and Kakashi had told him it was because he always visited the grave of his old teammate.

When he got there the nurses told him that he would be fine, and as far as anyone could tell the attackers had left. Naruto sat down in a chair next to the bed, and waited. He was relieved that Kakashi was ok, but the messanger had said something that worried him. Why would they have been after me?

After several minutes The Third had arrived to check on Kakashi. "It seems that Irachi, and an unknown shark man attacked Sasuke and Kakashi while they were training, thinking that you would be with them. When Gai jumped in and saved Kakashi from the shark ninjas' sword they decided that it was useless and left."

"Why would they want me?" Naruto asked?

"A lot of ninja are will be after you when word gets around that you hold the Kyuubi. And I suspect that they would have given a bigger fight if they had arrived before we gave Gaara back to the Sand. Luckily after interrogating them, Ibiki found that they were simply doing as told, and couldn't be held responsible. Also they were tricked as well, and Orochimaru murdered their Kazekage. So we sent them back yesterday." The Third explained seeing Naruto worries at the mention of their release.

Naruto knew that had been lucky to catch them as easy as they had, and was worried about a possible retaliatino. Gaara was a strong foe, hopefully they would stay true to them this time.

"So what are we going to do Sarutobi. I mean is it right to just sit here and wait?" Naruto asked, sounding somewhat confused about what to do.

"Naruto you and I have known each other a long time. And I have been happy to train you up til now. However the battle with Orochimaru showed me one thing. That I am no longer strong enough to contend with the young evil that occupies the world now. I am sending you with a special man to do some training. As well as to find my replacement." The Third responded.

Naruto didn't know what to say. He had always known that someday The Third would retire and appoint a new Hokage. But part of him had always hoped that it would take some time, long enough for him to be able to take the position.

"However I'm appointing you leader of a Chuunin team as soon as you get back. Hinata, Shikamaru, and Chouji will all be reassigned when you return. The trip shouldn't take long, considering your skill. Jiraiya will be your Sensai for the trip. I'm sure you know the name." The Third continued.

"He's one of the legendary Sannin. Along with Tsunade, and Orochimaru." Naruto answered.

"Correct, he will be here tonight, you leave tomorrow. Your mission is to bring back Tsunade. And to learn as much as you can from him on the way. He is a very powerful man, and knows a lot about the shinobi world. In his later days he sticks to gathering information, but he can easily hold his own in a battle against anyone." The Third explained.

Naruto didn't reply he simply nodded his head in agreement. It was dinner time, and he was hungry. Naruto went home, ate some ramen and went to sleep.

"Naruto wake up it's time to leave." A tall grey haired man dressed in obnoxious yelled and red clothes said.

"Sarutobi told me that you wouldn't be ready til noon." Naruto replied.

"It is noon." The man stated, sounding slightly irritated at him.

"Oh, I'm sorry, I've already packed, I'll change and we'll leave." Naruto said as he stood up and walked into his small bathroom. He showered and dressed, and together him and Jiraiya left the village through the north gate.

"Naruto I was impressed with what Sarutobi told me about you. From what he has said you are pretty strong already, and have an amazing ability to learn. The Third spoke of a few occasions where you used a technique he had just used on you to defeat him. There is no doubt that you are strong. But out of the moves that you know, do you have a trump card?" The old man said.

"I've never really needed on. I don't think I have even lost a battle, I usually have team mates with me to help me out." Naruto replied.

"As I thought. Well I'm going to teach you a move that was taught to me by someone very important. The Fourth came up with this move, but was never able to finish it." Jiraiya stated.

Naruto watched as the old man held out his hand. His eyes almost didn't believe what he saw. In the old mans' palm a sphere of chakra was spinning, it had only taken him an instant to form it, and when he had he rushed towards an near by tree and thrust his palm into the trunk. Instantly the tree trunk shattered and the tree fell.

"It's called Rasengan. And it's learned in three steps. Here take this balloon, and don't drop it." Jiraiya instructed. He paused as Naruto did as he was told. "Ok, now concentrate your chakra into this balloon and swirl it in two different directions. The point is to get the water inside spinning fast enough to pop the balloon. Practice as we walk, and don't get discouraged, it takes time, The Fourth worked on this his whole life and it took him three years to get it down, and he never truely perfected it."

Naruto didn't respond, he simply held the balloon in his hand as he walked and practiced as he was told. It took him a long time to get it to even move. But as they walked he slowly made progress. One the sun reached the top of their heads they stopped for lunch at the side of a stream.

"Naruto you look very framiliar to me, but I know that we've never met before." Jiraiya stated.

"I actually get that a lot. I've even had a few shinobi run away because they thought I was someone else." Naruto replied.

"Interesting." The old man replied.

The rest of the meal was quiet, and after a few minutes they moved on. They walked for the rest of the night until they reached a village.

"I have recieved information that Tsunade was here last night, hopefully if we got lucky she's still her. So keep an eye out, in all the windows, she likes to drink, and she likes to gamble." Jiraiya instructed.

Naruto nodded and started looking in windows for someone that looked framiliar. He had only seen pictures of her, so he knew it was going to be difficult to spot her, especially if she didnt' want to be found.

They walked aroun for a few hours, and checked with a few hostels in the area. Until at last they were walking down the street, and she bumped right into Naruto.

"Hey watch it old lady!" Naruto exclaimed, surprised he hadn't felt it coming.

"You better watch it kid, you don't know who your talking to." The tall blonde woman stated.

"And neither do you, you better watch your threats." Naruto replied.

"Tsunade, it's so nice to see you." Jiraiya sais as he stepped between them.

"Jiraiya-Sama, how odd to see you here." Tsunade replied. "Any reason for this chance meeting?" Tsunade inquired.

"Actually yes. I have come as a representative of The Third. Have you heard about the recent attack on the village by Orochimaru?" Jiraiya asked.

"Yes, I heard that a group of Genin under Kakashi were able to capture three main participants, as well as save the Hokage." Tsunade answered.

"That's right, and speaking of those Genin, this is Naruto, he is one of those Genin, and was recently made a Chuunin. Tsunade, we are here because the third would like to know if you would accept his offer to be the Fifth Hokage." Jiraiya said.

"Why would I want to do that, Hokage is just a position for the people, it's a worthless title, I'm already a Sannin." Tsunade replied seeming irritated by the proposition.

"How dare you old lady, that's it, lets go, I will never let anyone talk about Sarutobi like that!" Naruto yelled out.

"Hmm, well if you really want to get your ass kicked lets go." Tsunade replied. "And I'll even make it interesting, if you can beat me, I will be Hokage, if you can't, you have to give up being a ninja, and be my servent."

"You have a deal. However it's late, and we must rest, There are other reasons that we are here, that must be taken care of first, give us two days, and meet us outisde the north gate of the village." Jiraiya explained.

"Deal." Tsunade said. "Naruto it will be nice having a bag boy around."

And with that Tsunade dissapeared into the crowd. Naruto could tell she wasn't going to be a push over. He would have to come up with a plan for fighting her. But he no idea what kindas of moves she uses.

"Jiaiya why did you do that, I can't be here, she's a Sannin." Naruto asked.

"Because in two days you will learn Rasengan, and you will be able to defeat her. Now lets head to our camp, so you can practice. Get out your balloon." The old man instructed.

Naruto pulled out the balloon and started to practice as they walked. There were a lot of people around so it took a while to work their way back out of town. And along the way Naruto managed to pop the balloon. Not just once but twice.

"Good Naruto, you've finished the first step just in time. Now try this." Jiraiya stated, handing Naruto a thick rubber ball. "The point in this part is to do the same thing, but because the rubber is thicker you will need to use more power."

Naruto nodded and started to practice. This was a little easier than before, Naruto always had an easier time with things that used more Chakra. That's why he had a hard time creating regular clones. It was easy to get the balls walls to start to bubble and move around, but it was something completely differerent to pop it. After he was thoroughly exhausted he went to sleep.

When Naruto woke up, he noticed that the sun was barely rising. He stood up, and got dressed. After preparing himself a meal, he walked back out of the village to start training again. He hoped to get the rubber ball to explode by lunch time so that he would have the rest of the day to master it completely.

A few hours into his training he was able to pop a whole into the rubber ball. When he came back from getting another rubber ball to practice with he started to get the whole thing under control. He had been trying to use too much more chakra, and it was too hard to control it. But now he figured out that he still need some control. And he popped the next four in one try.

Satisfied that he was ready for the next part he went up to talk to Jiraiya. "I've popped the ball five times in a row now. What's the next step."

"You have to combine the two lessons, the control and the power, and gather it in your palm itself. When you can do that and run with it, you are ready to fight Tsunade." He replied.

Naruto had already dissapeared when Jiraiya had finished, he headed farhter out of the village this time, so he wouldn't be heard making a bunch of noise, and confuse someone.

Naruto wa nearly exhausted as the sun was going down. He had managed to do a smaller version of what Jiraiya had shown him, but couldn't control that much power yet. He needed to find a way to do it still.

For two more hours Naruto tried different ideas to help him control it. His last attempt had been to use a single shadow clone to help him form it. It had been working so far, and all he needed to do now was get the running part down. Naruto gathered the chakra between the hand of the clone and his own fairly quickly, and then canceled out the clone. As he ran he concentrated very hard on keeping it rotating, but noticed that oncei t was going he could sustain it just by holding it. He smashed down a few trees to make sure he had the hang of it, and then he went home. The sun was almost coming up, and he needed to get some rest.

When Naruto woke up it was already ten in the afternoon. He had to hurry to get prepared for this match, it would have a heavy effect on the outcome of Konoha. He met back up with Jiraiya, and they sat down to eat before the match at noon.

"Naruto, I must warn you that Tsunade will not hold back, and she could easily kill you if you are not careful. Although I did turn it down, it was only because she is more suited for the title of Hokage. But I have a plan that you can use to defeat her. It's a little trick that I figured out a long time ago. Although she is powerful it means that her swings are telegraphed and slower than normal. So get in tight and finish it quickly, the longer it takes the more likely she is to win. And be careful she is smart. Smarter than the average person is. But I think that you know a wider range of attacks than she does, so I am confident that you'll be alright." Jiraiya started.

"I've been thinking about what I wanted to do against her. I've heard much about all of the Legendary Sannin. That's why I was able to get to Orochimaru so easily. I know how the three of you fight and have actually used stories of your battles in my fights to get the upper hand. I had even already heard of Rasengan, I just didn't want to kill your enthusiasim. Sarutobi began telling me about it, but decided I wasn't ready, but I think it's cause he can't do it." Naruto replied.

"You really are a surprising kid Naruto. I guess I will leave it up to you, but remember how important it is that you win." Jiraiya said.

"I'll be ok, I never loose." Naruto answered, no over confidently, but with just the right level of sterness to make a point.

Naruto and Jiraiya sat in silence as they waited for her to show up. It didn't take too long, from what the old man said she is usually pretty late, so they were happy when she showed up at ten after. Naruto, although still young was much more mature than most his age, and noticed her natural appeal, and wondered how she stayed that way. Perhaps it was part of her strategy, Naruto could see it being hard to hit an attractive female when he got older.

"Let's get this over with, it won't take long." Tsunade began.

"Your right, it won't, I hold back against Sarutobi, but you look young enough to keep up." Naruto replied. He enjoyed the look of surprise on her face.

They began the battle fairly slowly. Naruto knew that she could get at him from wherever, but knew she wanted to get close. He wondered if she knew he wanted that as well.

The battle finally started after they circled the small clearing twice. It didn't take long for the old lady to get impatient. Naruto watched in amazment as the ground lurched up beneath him, powered by a massive strike by her fist to the ground. He easily dodged the attack and used the dust cover to create two clones. Launching one directly at her, and hiding one in the near by tree cover the quickly dug a tunnel below him. Carefully colapsing the entrance to hide his tracks.

Tsunade threw a single kunai at the clone, but misse by inches. However he fist quickly extended and caught the clone in the chest, it dissapeared in a puff of smoke. The hidden clone had great timing in throwing a kunai threw the smoke, and it actually connected with her left shoulder.

Naruto waited under the ground, waiting for his moment to strike. This was one of his favorite strategies, and it worked fairly well. Being careful to not give her time to find him, he had his other clone close in for an attack. Dodging a quick roundhouse, Narutos' clone went for the sweeping kick but missed. However this is exactly what he wanted, as she jumped into the air he spung his trap.

Flying out of the ground he used the passing hand of the clone to create a Rasengen. With lightning speed he thrust his palm upwards, hoping to connect with her mid section.

Seeing that she was in trouble, she threw another kunai straight down in the direction of the swiring blue ball of chakra. The move caused her to ignore her perifrial vision, and she didn't notice the clone coming from behind to grab her.

Naruto easily dodged the kunai and used the momentary trap to slam his palm towards her arm. Luckily for Tsunade his aim was off and he only grazed it. The blow was still powerful enough to knock her to the ground and destroy the clone. The two of them landed, and Tsunde began to look really mad.

"I've got to hang it to you kid, you deffinately have skill. But I will end this now." Tsunade said slowly.

"I'm sure you will." Naruto replied, not loosing his calm.

Naruto decided that he had given her enough time to warm up. He created three clones and they all started making seals.

"Kakuro, Doton: Yomi Numa, Bunshin Daibakuha." They all shouted in turn. The seconds clone took only seconds to work and had instantly trapped Tsunade, the first attack rage towards her and as if that wasn't enough the last clone ran as close as he could and detonated. When the smoke cleared Naruto could see Jiraiya covering Tsunade with his Hari Jizo.

"This fight is over, we can't have our Hokage hospitilized by a villager before she's even there." Jiraiya stated.

"Your good kid, I will keep my promise and be Konohas' Hokage. And I also have a gift for you. This will always bring you good luck." Tsunade stated slowly and tossed something shiny in Narutos' direction.

Naruto caught it and saw that it was a necklace, with an amazing looking stone hanging as a pendant.

"It was The Seconds, keep it safe." Tsunade stated.

The trip back to the village didn't seem to take anywhere near as long as it did to get there. And Tsunade made them stop several times to pay off debts, and visit some of her favorite hot springs on the way. Jiraiya didn't mind, and Naruto was enjoying the relaxing, he knew it would get serious when they got back.

After two days walking they reached the entrance to Konoha and checked in with the gate guard. Immediately they headed to the Hokage mansion to let the council know that she accepted. The whole town seemed to come out to greet her, it had been a long time since she had been in the village. The Third personally greeted her at the door to the mansion.

"Tsunade I'm so glad you decided to accept this." The Third stated.

"I must say Sarutobi, that it wasn't Jiraiya, but Naruto that convinced me. I bet him that he couldn't beat me, and he almost killed me in the end. I truely believe that with him helping this village, we will all be fine." Tsunade admited.

"Naruto is an amazing ninja. Tomorrow he leads his first team on a mission. He's chosen very well, and I've found an A Rank mission for them to be sent on. It's rank is so high because of the possible danger level. In all reality it's simply recoinassance. So they should be ok." The Third replied.

"A little after a week from now is the ceremony for you taking over. And after that I will only be an advisor for tough decisons. I want to retire unelss really needed again. I may also take over the mission assignments for Naruto and his team. He has special circumstances and I want to make sure he stays on track." The Third instructed.

"Sounds fine to me, I'll leave him to you all you want. I'm sure he can take care of himself." Tsunade responded.

Naruto had gone straight home and sent messangers to his team. He would have a meeting with them tonight to explain the mission, so they would have more prep time in the morning. He finished eating just as they all showed up.

"I hope that none of you are too angry about being transfered. But I will say this, I assembled my team to deal with tough missions. Although you are all still Genin, I am confident in your skills. The mission we will leave on tomorrow, is a stealth mission to find two members of Akatsuki. And if possible, find as much information as we can about their activities. If we do our jobs right there will be minimum fighting, and it will be a quick safe mission. Shikimaru, Chouji, and Hinata, you are all severly underated, and we will show that to the village. You will all be Chuunin soon." Naruto began.

"This is troublesome, I'm tired, can we wrap this up Naruto. Chouju is looking hungry as well." Shikamaru stated, however a quick glance at Chouji showed him eating a bag of chips already.

"Alright you all get some sleep and we will meet up tomorrow." Naruto finished. And watched as Shikamaru, and Chouji left the room.

"Naruto, why did you pick me, I'm weaker than most of the ninjas that just graduated. There must have been better." Hinata asked shyly.

"I picked you because of your potential, and because your Byakugen, is an ability that I take for granted far too much to not have picked you. I believe in your skill, and your power, and together we will work on your confidence. You will surprise yourself, as well as everyone else." Naruto replied.

Hinata was suddenly beet red, and completely unable to speak. So she simply stood up and smiled a small meek smile. The slowly left the house in a daze, she didn't know how the others felt, but she was happy for the transfer.

Naruto stayed up a few minutes and read a few scrolls on the terrain they would be entering, and then crawled into bed himself. Excited for his mission. And happy things were still working out well.

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There it was I hope that you liked it. More to come soon. I kinda took some liberties with the Tsunade battle, I hadn't originally planned for her to even make it into the story, but a few major plot changes made me change my mind, and so I took some licenses with the battle sequence. Just assume that she underestimated him to the point it affected her judgement. Let me know what you thought of it, and I'll try and get another chapter to you soon.


	4. Chapter 3

So here is the next chapter, it's kinda short, but had to be. I hope that you all like it, and comments are welcome, enjoy.

Disclaimer: I do not own, nor know anyone who owns Naruto.

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Chapter 3

The next day Naruto waited at the north gate to Konoha. He had been up most of the night trying to decide where they should start looking. There was very little information as to where, or even how many of them were in Akatsuki. After asking around, and getting a large amount of help from Tsunade they were able to come up with a plan.

Only one person had seen Itachi, and his comrade leave. And they left through the north gate. So they would head north. Itachi was rumored to be one of the most powerful in Akatsuki, so he would be their first target to locate. None of them were powerful enough to kill them, even together. So they were simply to find their hide outs and then come back and report.

Naruto had made sure to get to the gate before the rest of the team, he wanted to see who would be there first. A few minutes before nine he could see Hinata running towards the gate, she looked upset.

"Naruto I'm sorry I'm late, I hope that you aren't all waiting, for, me." Hinata slowly finished. As she looked around she noticed that she was the first there besides Naruto.

"Don't worry about it, you're actually early. And the first one here, I'm still waiting on Shikamaru, and Chouji." Naruto said calmy, followed by a small chuckle. "I'll explain the plan when they arrive."

After only a minute or two Shikamaru and Chouji arrived together, just as Naruto expected. It would be interesting working with someone smarter then him, stronger than him, and it was always nice having a bloodline in the team. Naruto liked creating instances to take advantage of them. It had just taken Sasuke quite a while to awaken his.

"Okay, as I explained before, we are going to be tracking Akatsuki. The only reason we have been given this mission, is becase of it's high level of secrecy, we are being trusted with that secret. We will be heading north from here, if Itachi kept his course that's the way he will be found. This is going to be a long mission, we will be away from Konoha for a long time. It's going to be tough, but I'm sure we can handle it. Let's move out." Naruto finished.

After a few glances at each other the team left the safety of the city and headed north. Although it seemed odd to them all that they would hopefully find Itachi in the Hidden Village of Sound. But they figured they would have to change course eventually.

Naruto's team was given specific directions to avoid any unnecessary combat. Tsunade almost even asked them to remove their forehead protectors, but decided not to on a feeling that it would only hinder their movements. Almost everyone was getting along with Konoha at the moment, so it could just raise suspicion.

Tsunade had set up meetings with the heads of all the other Kage's that could make it, and sent urgent messages to the rest. With special seals that could only be opened by a Kage. This contacts were meant to inform the other nations of their mission, so that they wouldn't be bothered.

However this also opened up room for sabotage, by anyone spying. Tsunade just hoped that wouldn't happen. It was a possibility that Akatsuki had infiltrated the councils of one of the villlages. But only time would tell. If that time came, she did have one special ninja following behind them to make sure that hadn't gotten into trouble along the way. Although he was following his own mission, it somewhat corresponded with Narutos'.

Naruto and his team had been heading straight north for almost two days. After they had taken their break for a meal around noon. They changed course slightly west, leaving them on a heading for the Hidden Village of Stone. None of them had ever heard too much about the area. But they still had no clues to where to find Akatsuki.

Darkness fell somewhat early that night due to a heavy amount of cloud cover. So they all decided to rest up at an Inn located in a small village. They were still two or three days run from the Hidden Village of Stone.

Naruto and Hinata were outide of the inn in the backyard. Naruto was helping Hinata develope her Taijitsu, she was small, and somewhat lacking in confidence, he was hoping the training would help her confidence, and balance out her size. Even with her Byakugen she still had trouble with Narutos' speed. He had been training with Neji for so long that he knew how to deal with her bloodline.

Hinata ran towards Naruto and jumped high into the air, blocking her image with the light of the moon. She threw three kunai towards him, and moved straight in. Hoping to connect with Naruto just after her kunai. However Naruto blocked the Kunai with one hand, and was able to knock her thrusting arm away. Hinata qcuikly lowered her body and went for a leg sweep. Naruto was slammed to the ground, and lay on his back. Hinata quickly moved towards him with open palms. She was trying to end the battle then.

Naruto rolled away at the last moment and sprang up behind her, leveling a kunai with her throat, Hinata had done well, but Naruto was just too fast.

"You did very well Hinata, you've gotten quicker, and are less detered by failed attacks." Naruto complimented. "Lets rest for a little while and then maybe we can go again."

"Thank you Naruto for all your help, I can feel myself getting stronger as the days go by." Hinata said softly. Naruto was amazed at how quickly she could return to her shy state of mind.

The both of them sat up against the fence and closed their eyes. They had been fighting for nearly two hours, so they were both fairly tired. Naruto opened his eyes when he heard voices talking behind them.

"I've heard rumors of attacks in the Hidden Village of Stone. Someone is looking for Jinchuuriki there." A voice spoke quietly behind them.

"I wonder who it could be. I hope that they don't come here, we could never hold them off. It would be a shame for the village to be destroyed for something that wasn't even here." Another replied.

"Hinata, lets head inside, we need to rest, we need to get to the Hidden Village of Stone quickly." Naruto whispered.

Naruto and Hinata headed inside and went to sleep. After a few hours of sleep Naruto woke up, and nudged the others in his team. It was time to leave. It only took a few minutes for them to gather their things and walk out into the moonlight. By the location of the moon Naruto figured it was no later then two in the morning. Over the last few days him and his team had grown a liking to traveling at night, with less people, and the cool air, they were able to travel faster and longer.

A day and a half later they arrived at their destination, and checked into another Inn. As soon as they had their bags put away they gathered for a quick briefing of what they were to do.

"I have a special surprise for the three of you. It has been arranged for us to be temporarily activated as ANBU. Although it is mostly for concealment purposes. We have been giving new uniforms. Please put them on, along with your masks, and we will leave." Naruto said, throwing each of them a package containing an ANBU uniform, and a mask. Each of their masks were different, and reflected who was inside.

Shikamarus' was straight black, with two white circles around his eyes. It made him look much more sinister than he really was. Chouji's had two criss crossing patterns across his, if you blocked out one of them at a time, you could see that the lines formed the outline of a stomach. Although odd sounding, you could hardly tell without looking for it. Hinata's was pure white, with pink circles around her eyes. And Natutos' was a sort of tribal pattern mimicking the basic outline of a fox in red lines.

Together they walked out into the village. Hinata had her Byakugen activated and searched the city for high amounts of chakra. As they paced around the village they noticed that there weren't a whole lot of people outside. Which amazed Naruto because of how awe bringing the design of the village was. Each and everybuilding had been carved out of the mountainscape around them. The stone was shinned to an amazing sheen. Not overpowering to the eyes, but enough to make your jaw drop. The whole village looked like one giant sheet of polished marble.

As they walked around the village they kept finding large levels of chakra, but none of them seemed to be Akatsuki. The four of them crept around the village all night, looking for any sign of them. It took them all night to stumble around the village and find something interesting. As they turned a corner and entered a new part of the village they were shocked to discover that the whole black had been burned to the ground. It looked as if there had been a major battle recently. If the bodies hadn't been removed already, it would have been a very eerie thing to see.

Hinata detected an extremely high level of chakra coming from a building at the end of the street. The only building on the block that had survived. She started trembling simple from the knowledge that so much chakra could be contained in one place.

"Naruto I think that we have located them, there in that last building, there is a very high level of chakra. It's emitting from two people. Both of them seem to be meditating together." Hinata informed Naruto.

"Then we definately must be careful around here. If they are still around we could easily fail our mission here and now. It is very important that it is not known what we are doing in our mission to anyone. Let's head back to the Inn, and send a message to Tsunade reporting this." Naruto said softly.

Trying not to look suspicious in case they were being watched they slowly turned around to leave the area. However a dark figure was standing in their way. As they started to walk towards him, he stepped out of the shadows and revealed himself. The man standing there was easily recognized as Uchiha Itachi.

All four of them froze at his sight. Instantly averting their eyes away from his upper body. Before this mission had started Naruto had warned all of them about an encounter with Itachi.

He had told them to never look at his eyes, and even then to be careful about where you look, it would be very easy for you to be caught in hsi technique, and if that happens your dead.

"You must look at his feet, and his shoulders to fight him, otherwise you will be dead within moments." Naruto had told them.

"What are you four doing here all the way from Konoha. I'm sure it wasn't to find me was it. Most people who find me end up dying. Is that your wish?" Itachi said calmly, and slowly. Almost making it seem like a warning.

Hinata glanced back towards where she had seen the chakra emitions. And noticed that there were still two people up there.

"Naruto I think this is some sort of clone. I can still see the two men meditating up in that room. But one of them has less chakra around him. He must have used some to make this clone to fight us." Hinata stated, trying to keep as quiet as possible, so only Naruto could hear her.

Naruto simply nodded his head in acknowledgement. "Itachi, we are simply passing through, we wish no battle with you. We are looking for a fugitive from Konoha who tried to assasinate Hokage-sama."

"That's too bad, too bad he failed anway. As for you four, I'm going to kill you. Anyone from Konoha is my enemy." Itachi replied, and with what seemed like no movement he dissapeared.

"Naruto he is coming at you!" Hinata warned.

Naruto dodged to the side just in time to see Itachis' fist coming towards his face. Itachi was underestimating them, and hopefully he could take advantage of that. Naruto continued to block and doge the assault of fists and feet that were flying towards him. At the same time Hinata and Shikamaru hid in a back alley and waited for their turn to attack, as Chouji did the same in an alleyway on the other side of the road. Naruto was fast, and he was powerful, if this was a clone then he wouldn't have too hard of a time.

Naruto nd Itachi split and stood in front of each other. Naruto eyed the distance between them, it was about twenty meters. That was enough time to counter Itachis' next move. Itachis' hands suddenly became a blur with seals, Naruto steadied and prepared for his attack.

"Koton: Karyuu Endan." Itachi spoke.

As Itachi exhaled a huge flame from his mouth, Naruto formed a seal and three shadow clones appeared. At the same time he formed seals for another attack.

" Doton: Shinjuu Zanshu no Jutsu." Naruto said to himself., and he dissapeared beneath the ground.

One of his shadow clones jumped out of the way of the attack, as the others threw kunai at Itachi, breaking his concentration, stopping his next attack. Itachi let a grin spread across his face, whoever his opponent was, he would be a challenge.

Naruto chose this moment to spring his attack. Leaping from beneath Itachi he flew out of the ground and connected with Itachi's chin, sending him flying into the air. There was a popping sound and a cloud of smoke. Itachis' clone was destroyed. Naruto watched as the real Itachi came out of the shadow.

Itachi dissapeared one more time, reappearing directly behind the Naruto. Within a few moves Itachi was holding Naruto by his arms and forced his head to look straight up into his eyes. Naruto blinked and Itachi was gone.

He knew immediately that he was in a technique already, and looked around. He wasn't even in the village anymore, he was back in Konoha. And there was a war raging around him. To his left he could see a giant fox with nine tails, looming over battle field. And a sinlge man stood in front of it holding a seal that Naruto didn't recognize. He watched in horror as the man sucked the nine tails into the belly of a woman laying at his feet. Suddenly he realized what he was watching.

But quickly the image faded to blackness and only the woman appeared, screaming in pain. She was laying on her back, with her legs pulled towards her, spread. She was giving birth. Naruto watched as a small baby came out from the womas womb. The woman let out a single breath of relief, and NAruto watched as her body went limp.

Naruto could feel tears welling up in his eyes. Itachi had gone too far, he had forced him to watch his own mother die, giving birth to him. The image faded from his eyes again. And before him stood Itachi, holding a long katana, placing the point directly at his throat.

"Now I will kill you Naruto, your dying mother will be the last thing that your eyes will see." Itachi stated slowly.

Out of no where the sword and itachi dissapeared. And Naruto was back in the Hidden Village of Stone. In front of him Itachi was standing perfectly still with his arms at his side. At his feet Naruto could see a shadow leading backtowards the alleyway to his left.

Shiukamaru had caught Itachi in his technique, saving Naruto.

Quickly Naruto formed a shadow clone, and ran with it towards Itachi. Within a few steps him and the clone had formed a raging Rasengen. Narutos' eyes were red, and a red chakra was flowing around him. Itachi had gone too far, and Naruto was going to kill him.

Naruto thurst the Rasengan into Itachi's chest, blowing him backwards. And creating a massive crater in the ground. Shikamaru and Hinata came out of their spots and joined Naruto.

"Naruto Shikamaru, Hinata you must see this." Chouji shouted thirty meters away. He was standing over the body of Itachi.

When they got close they could see that it wasn't Itachi that Naruto had killed with his Rasengan. Below them lay a man dressed in Akatsuki robes. But on his head was a forhead protector from the Hidden Village of Stone. Akatsuki had been here a while apparently.

"Hinata are they still in that building?" Naruto asked.

Hinata turned her eyes towards the building. "Yes, they are both still there, and still meditating. I'm not sure what just happened, but that was not Itachi."

"It's time we left this village. Wee need to report to Konoha about our findings." Naruto stated, and they all disappeared in a flash, and went directly back to the Inn.

They all gathered their things and cleaned up the Inn. On top of Narutos' bed lay a scroll. He picked it up and gazed at the writing. Shikamaru watched as his eyes widened in surprise.

"The note says that they regret not having the time to fight me personally, but to rest assured that they would be after me soon enough. It goes on to say that they hope I'm a bigger challenge that the other two Jinchuuriki they have defeated." Naruto finished. "Lets move, I think it best we head back to Konoha and report this personally, if for nothing else, it's only a short detour on the way to the Sand. Where we will be talking to our new allies, if they are after Jinchuuriki, Gaara will be on that list as well."

"What makes you think that they will go there before they go after you?" Chouji asked.

"Well, there are nine bijuu. And the on inside of me is called the Kyuubi. He was said to be the most powerful of them all. So I'm guessing that I will be one of the last they try to obtain. Gaara holds Shikaku, the one tailed beast. If the Kyuubi is the strongest, I'm guessing that Shikaku, will be one of the weakest, especially given it's history of being sealed and extracted numerous times. Lets get moving though, I'll explain more on the way." Naruto answered.

Quickly they finished packing and left the village and headed south. They traveled quickly, and took few rests until they reached the boarder of The Land Of Fire. There they slowed down a little and Naruto started to explain more to them.

"It has been kept fairly classified, but Jiraiya has gotten some information stating that it will take Akatsuki around three years to get to me. Giving us over two and a half years to prepare. Tsunade was hoping that we would be able to find them all in that time, and retaliate before they were ready. However I don't think that it will be as easy as she hoped. It seems like it will be very hard for us to find them without them knowing about it. Which will make an ambush impossible." Naruto informed them.

"So what do you think we should do now." Shikimaru asked.

"I'm going to suggest that the four of us begin special training to prepare for their arrival. The three of us, as well as many others will be needed to fight them off when the time comes. So we all need to become stronger, and progress in rank." Naruto explained.

"What kind of special training?" Hinata asked.

"Well, I think that the only way that we will be able to stop a group as powerful as them, is to create many teams that are trained to deal with one Akatsuki member at a time. Each crew will be designed to play into a members weakness, and maybe even their strengths. Most of them will be too powerful for one ninja to defeat. However with special teams we will all stand a chance. Maybe we can even coordinate with the Sand and incorporate them into this. But it will all be up to Tsunade-Sama. So there is nothing we can do until we let her know what's going on." Naruto finished.

"I suppose that your right, no matter how troublesome it is, they will have to be dealt with. Luckily we were able to foil Orochimarus' plan, and we don't have to fight them both at the same time." Shikimaru replied.

The rest of the trip was made in silence. All of them were wrapped up in their own thoughts, and observations, wondering what was going to happen in the three years to come. It didn't seem like a long time, but for a ninja, it could be eternity. They arrived back in Konoha in half the time it took them to get there. Naruto was pretty confident that Itachi and his team mate wouldn't be following them, so they didn't even look for ambushes. As soon as they got to Konoha Naruto dismissed his team and went to the Hokages' mansion to tell Tsunade about what had happened. He had also sent ahead for Sarutobi to be there as well.

Naruto walked into the conference room inside the mansion and waited for the two of them to get there. It seemed like it had been a long time since he had seen Sarutobi.

"Naruto it is good to see you have returned back safely, but you have returned much sooner than expected." Sarutobi stated solemly.

"We found two members of Akatsuki, but were spotted ourselves. When we found them, it seemed as if they were involved in some sort of long range technique. That required their full attention. Once we were noticed a strange technique was used to turn an ordinary ninja into a replication of Itachi, capable of using all of his techniques. Together we were able to dispell the effect of the move and escape. But we didn't want to get too close, and cause them to attack themselves. There is no way we could have survived that. I've returned to give my opinion on what should be done." Naruto replied.

"You know that you have gained our utmost respect as a ninja, and I think your opinion would be valuable, please continue," Tsunade stated.

"It seems to me that there is no way for us to locate all of them and stop them before they are ready to initiate the rest of their plan, whatever it may be. I feel that our time would be better spent training and preparing for the time, then it would be trying to stop them before they reveal themselves. I noticed that Jiraiya had been following us most of the time. And I know that he has a similar mission to us. Keep him in the field keeping track of their movements, and use the time to create special teams each formed and trained to concentrate on one of the Akatsuki members." Naruto said slowly, choosing his words carefully.

"You have good ideas Naruto. Your idea seems to show knowledge of things that haven't been made public yet. It is true that Akatsuki is after Jinchuuriki, they hope to catch them all and use the power to do something. What that something is we do not know yet. We also have recieved information that there are nine active members in Akatsuki. Each of them more powerful than most of the ninja villages combined. I think that you have a good idea. I will issue new orders to the ANBU. Telling them that if they do make contact with a member of the organization, that they are to try their best to bring back relevant battle data on them. In the mean time we will begin training teams to handle the few members that we do have data on. Naruto go home and rest, tomorrow I will have your new training plan brought to your house, and the following day you will begin. Do you think that the team you have now will be able to deal with an Akatsuki member?" Tsunade asked.

"I'm not sure, if given proper training for the situation, I believe that even if we are weaker we could take at least one of them down. But I have a feeling that Itachi is just the tip of the iceberg, as far as the amount of power they each have. When that weird clone appeared Hinata had noticed one of the members chakra drop. Assuming that one was the one that used the technique, the other shinobi had more chakra than I have ever seen. Possibly more either of you, maybe even both of you combined." Naruto answered.

"I see, well that means that we have to take full advantage of the time we've been given. Naruto you will recieve your teams training routine as planned, for now go to your room and get some sleep." Sarutobi stated. Naruto could tell he was nervous, maybe even frightened.

Naruto could hardly sleep once he had climbed into bed. There were far too many thoughts racing through his head. What was his new training going to include, was he going to train with his teamates, and which known member would he be trained to face? All he knew was that it was going to be a long three years.

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I know that it's kinda short, but it was a hard chapter to write. I realized that I needed to use the time skip like in the show in order to progress the story and had a hard time figuring out how to do it. Given that I don't have the whole Orochimaru story line to help. I needed to find something else. Sorry for revealing some of the techniques used in the show a little earlier than they were, but I'm probably going to change a good amount of the story from here on anyway. Hope that you all enjoyed, and I'll update again soon.


	5. Chapter 4

Finally, I'm starting to get the plot moving on this one. It's been taking me a while though, it's been getting hard to start writing, I've been kinda busy. Be sure to read the notice below if you don't it may end up confusing in the end, although it's pretty obvious still. I hope you like it.

Disclaimer: I do not own, nor know anyone who owns Naruto.

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NOTICE: There is a rough, two and a half to three year time skip that takes places after the last chapter and before this chapter.

Chapter 4

"Alright, our target lies directly behind that mountain. There should be a small hut, inside this hut we'll find some way of opening a door to beneath the hut. That's where he'll be." Naruto started. "Hinata can you see if our information is right from here?"

"Byakugen," Hinata stated as usual. "Well, I can see the hut, it's actually not as far as we expected. And inside the house, I detect some sort of barrier over the floor in a square pattern, and I can't see below that."

"That's fine, thank you Hinata." Naruto said.

Naruto suddenly realized where they were. Some how their last training mission of the three years brought them back to the Hidden Village of Stone. They were only an hour outside the city, in a strange ravene in the forest. Naruto glanced at Hinata, Shikamaru, and Chouji. He felt a certain sense of pride in his team. They had all become so strong over the last three years. Shikamaru was now more interested in missions, no longer looking at them as troublesome, at least not as troublesome. Hinata had almost caught up to Neji with her Soft Fist technique, but has far surpased him due to expanding her fighting style to include other ninjitsu, as well as a large range of healing techniques. Chouji was the biggest surprise of all, his sheer strength was now scary. Naruto had been the recipient of many hard blows while training, both of them left him uncouncious. Yet, the scariest part of it isn't his strength, Naruto had done some of his very special training with Chouji, although Chouji was not able to continue very far into it.

Together they had been doing some clean up work for Tsunade for the last month. They had been sent to track down and kill a man who attempted to assasinate Tsunade two months before. It had taken them almost a month to find him, and along the way they had found some information on the ninja responsible. Naruto hadn't told Tsunade in any of the reports, but it very well may have been an Akatsuki member.

Naruto had become very sly in certain circumstances. He learned from Jiraiya how to obtain information in a much safer way. During the middle of the third year, Naruto had spent a month with Jiraiya, who taught him about a few things that he specialized in. The first was his summoning contract, Naruto signed a contract, and began learning the technique Kuchiyose no Jutsu.

Although the weaker ones were not of much use, there were many, that had different perposes. Some were good for transport up mountains, some were good messangers, and some were capable of gathering information. A full week had been spent trying to summon Gamabunta. He had been able to do it the first time, however, the King Toad, had not been happy about being summoned for no reason. Naruto had thought quickly and came up with a plan.

Naruto had made a deal with him, if Naruto could stay on his back for a week, Gamabunta would acknowledge Naruto as one of his subordinates, and help him if ever he was in need. Of course Naruto was easily able to accomplish the task at this point, and Gambotu honored his word.

After a moment Naruto came back to the real world. He had let his imagination wonder as he thaught back on the past three years. Now it was time to take care of the tast at hand.

"Shikamaru, Hinata, Chouji, are you all ready, as you all know this could potentially be very dangerous. Especially if we are caught off guard, if any of them get the jump on us we're over with. We will execute attack plan red. Do any of you have any questions?" Naruto instructed.

"What's our back up plan, if the information we have recieved is indeed correct, there is no way that plan would work." Shikamaru replied.

"Yes I do, if it is indeed an Akatsuki member, than we have to confirm two things before we can even fight. The first is that it is the person that we were trained to go after. It is quite possibly that we could be out matched if pitted against the wrong one. The second is how many of them there are. " Naruto explained. "If there are only two, most likely we will be ok, we were trained to handle a two man cell from Akatsuki. However, if there are more than two, or if it's not our target, we can not engage."

"I see." Shikamaru said.

"Let's go, it's time to move, the clouds have almost covered the moons light." Naruto said as he looked up at the giant storm cloud slowly cover the first half of the full moon.

The four of them dissapeared in seperate flashes and headed in different directions. Their pattern resembled a half circle cut into fourths. All of them following the lines towards the middle, where the hut was located. They all wore transmitters around their necks so they could hear each other. They had split up hoping to draw any guards into smaller groups, each of them could easily take out two. If there were no guards however, it made them suseptable to be caught in traps. So Hinata ran with her Byakugen activated so she could inform them if they were approaching one.

Although the target was close they moved fairly slowly, they didn't want to create the chance of being caught in a trap Hinata missed, or simply didn't recognize. After fifteen minutes they all arrived at the hut. Hinata had detected traps surrounding the area, but found them each a path through.

There was only one path through the trees and branches that allowed you to directly avoid all of the traps. This meant that whoever they were following had set this up some time ago, and had been hiding here since. Once inside of the hut Naruto was able to examine the barrier covering what he hoped was the entrance to the hideout.

"It looks like a pretty simple barrier. There will be one tag hidden in this hut, maybe even somewhere outside. Most likely there is a seal over it to hide it's chakra. If the man is talented with seals, we may also have to counter it before we can destroy the tag. Everyone start looking, but if you find it, radio me so I can take a look at it." Naruto whispered to them all.

Each of them started moving slowly through the hut, except for Hinata, who watched each of them as they moved around the items in the hut. If the outside was trapped, the inside may be as well.

After thorougly searching the inside, Chouji located the tag outside hidden under a rock in a bush. Just as Naruto expected there was a special seal on the tag. He looked at it carefully, going over the information that Jiraiya had taught him about seals.

_This seal looks somewhat framiliar. There are three symbols forming a triangle around the tag. Earth, Fire, and Water, all of them were at the end of lines that converged at the center of the tag. Jiraiya had told me about this seal. It required the use of an earth, fire, and water technique to be peformed on the object in the center, some were able to infuse enough chakra to require them to be used at the same time. Making it almost impossible to unseal for one person. However he said the trick to the seal is it's simplistic nature._

"Hinata, go look inside the hut, and see if you can find me matches, Chouji, I want you to poor a little bit of water into the cap of your bottle." Naruto instructed.

As each of them moved to their tasks, Naruto found a small rock from the ground. Then came back to the place where the tag was.

"I couldn't find a match Naruto, but there is tis walking stick, we could use a koton technique to light it instead." Hinata told him.

"It's ok, I have matches." Shikimaru said.

"Why do you have matches, and why didn't you say anything the first time?" Naruto asked, more puzzled than annoyed.

"Well, I've always spent a lot of time with Asuma. And he got me started on a bad habit of mine." Shikamaru replied, pulling a small box from his bag.

He opened it revealing a back of cigarettes, the same brand as Asuma smokes, and a book of matches. He handed over the book of matches to Naruto, who handed them back.

"All of the items must be placed on the appropriate symbol at the same time, so the three of you will place the items, and I will give you the signal to do it." Naruto said.

Hinata, Chouji, and Shikamaru readied their element above their symbol. Shikamaru lit the match, and they all waited for Narutos' mark.

"On three, one, two, three." Naruto counted.

At the same moment the three of them connected their items to the symbols, and the symbol glowed white, and dissapeared. Naruto pulled the tag up from the ground and ripped it in half. The four of them slowly moved back towards the hut, and down the ladder that was hidden underneath the floorboard.

When they reached the bottom they stopped for a moment and let their eyes finish adjusting to the light. As Naruto had entered the hole, he realized there was a chance that the person they were tracking wasn't there at that moment. And could be coming from behind them. So he took a moment and left a trap of his own. And he had placed the floorboard back over the hole.

Hinata guided them through tunnels that ran through the ground beneath the forest, and the mountains, above them. They checked several side rooms, but none of them appeared to contain anything worth recovering. After half an hour of running around in the darkness, twitching at every shadow, they came to the last door.

Hinata looked back at the way they had come with her Byakugen and saw that this tunnel was perfectly parrallel with the very first straight stretch of the tunnels. The tunnels were a maze, and the exit was simply on the other side of the wall, without her bloodline there is a chance they may never have made it through.

Naruto paused in front of the door, and flashed three hand signals at his team, instructions for positions upon entry. The hope was that they would catch their target off guard, and be able to take advantage of the surprise. Naruto silently formed a shadow clone, and had it open the door. All of them sprung inside, except for the real Naruto. He hid in the shadows starring into the semi-darkness that lay through the door.

Shikamaru was happy to see that the room wasn't completely lit, that gave him an advantage, he quickly hid behind a chair, and watched as Hinata moved in behind him, quickly positioning herself to his right pressed up against the wall that the door was set in. Chouji and Naruto follow one after the other and began the attack.

"Bubbon Baika no Jutsu." Chouji started.

Choujis' arm grew to over ten times it's size as it stretched out towards the man sitting in the corner. He closed his hands around the man and squeezed tight. He could feel the mans structure breaking in his hand. Realizing it wasn't a real body he pulled it back towards him and dropped it on the ground. Laying on the floor they could see that it was just a dummy. Probably stolen from a local store, it had no hinges for movement, it was a decoy.

"Chouji he's behind you!" Hinata shouted, only her huge white eyes showing.

Chouji spun around to see a kunai flying at him. Hinata threw one of her own and intercepted it's course, knocking it away from Chouji. Narutos' clone quickly moved towards it's source and thrusted his fist into a wall, there was nothing there. Just a string trip wire connected to the dummy, the trap was designed to direct the kunai towards the location of the dummy when it was in the corner.

They quickly turned on the light switch and looked around the room. It was truely empty, with no sign of anyone. Either the person fled, or was going to be back soon, they had to act quickly. The four of them sprung together and returned the room to the way it was when they entered.

From the other side of the wall, and somewhere above them, Naruto could hear his trap going off, he had set it up so that if the floorboard was picked up, there would be three kunai's with exploding tags rushing at the one entering. The sound easily traveled down to them. If he survived whoever lived here was home, and the battle was about to begin.

"Quick everyone, back towards the entrance, we don't want to be cornered in this room." Naruto yelled and the four of them disappeared back into the darkness of the maze.

They ran as fast as they could towards the exit of the place. Not knowing which way the man would come form. Naruto figured that the resident of the hole, probably knew a fast way to get through the maze. So there was a chance he would come up from behind them. For a while they ran as fast as they could, with Hinata slightly in the lead, hopefully taking them to the exit. It felt like they had run much farther on the way out than they had on the way in.

"Stop, everyone. It seems like we may be going in circles. Hinata, I want you to take us through the maze, alternating between left and right turns. We will find out if we are in a technique." Naruto explained, as he threw a kunai into the wall. He walked over to it, and drew a few lines on the ground.

"I've sealed the kunai in place just in case our opponent comes along and tries to take it out, there is no way he will surive removing that seal." Naruto gave Hinata a signal and they continued on.

They picked up the pace for this experiment and they ran as fast as they could. After several minutes of sprinting they came back across the kunai. They had indeed walked in a circle.

Naruto walked slowly over to Shikamaru. If they were in a technique, it was a Genjutsu. And it probably wouldn't be hard to find out how to deal with it.

Naruto and Shikamaru stood directly in front of each other and held their hands up in front of them, palm facing towards them, placing them just in front of their stomachs, creating a block for anyone looking. And they began to sign back and forth with tremendous speed.

"I think that we are caught in a Genjutsu. What do you think?" Naruto started.

"Yes I think so." Shikamaru replied, he always though it was a troublesome thing to learn, but it did come in handy.

"Which one do you think that it is?" Naruto asked.

"Kokoni: Arazu no Jutsu, together we should be able to force it away." Shikamaru replied.

"Let's just see who we're dealing with, this could end up being Itachi. It would be best not to get trapped in one of his illusions. But let's play along for now. This doesn't feel like Itachi." Naruto finshed.

Shikamaru and Naruto went back and forth between each other for several minutes. It was important for them to not let what they were talking about be heard, so six months after they group formed he forced everyone to learn sign language. Although it took some time, once they got down what the signs were, it was easy for them to talk proficiently. Once they were finished Naruto walked back towards the center of the group. He gave three hand signals to his team, basically telling them to just follow along and try not to die.

Although they knew the person was trying to decieve them, Naruto did not know if he would continue trying if they caught it too many times. So he started leading them, simply taking a random path, but indirectly leading them on the same line as the kunai. He had removed the seal, using a counter that only he knew, from the kunai, allowing it to be moved. Hoping he would bite the bait.

Eventually they wondered back in a circle. However, only Naruto and Shikamaru noticed the difference. Because the Kunai had been removed, only the small hole where it was placed remained. He was falling into the trap. Now they just had to find him. Obviously he was close by, because he knew we were gone. So he is either watching them, or staying close to that particular area.

Each of them walked side by side, and signed short talk to each other. Hinata was looking for him, while the rest just randomized signs to lower the chance of translation. After a while someone was coming closer to them, closer and closer. He was probably just planning on attacking from behind, and catching them by surprise.

Hinata gave the one sign they were all waiting for, and sprung the trap. She guided Shikamarus' shadow towards the man behind them, waiting until they had just enough light to stretch it out, and made their move.

"Kagemane no Jutsu is a sucess." Shikamaru stated softly. Just as Naruto and Hinata used special tags. Naruto had designed them as a lesson with Jiraiya. The tags worked by creating a special seal on a piece of paper, and infusing chakra with it. Once activated they would emit a light that although it was bright, did not over power the room.

Shikamaru stood and forced their opponent to walk foreward into the light revealing who he really was. The four of them exhaled a deep breath when the man was not wearing an Akatsuki uniform. He was around average heigth and build. But the look in his eyes is what told of his experience. They were a dark green, that shone almost red in the light. He looked ready to kill, the moment that the shadow released.

Hinata, and Chouji sat and watched Shikamarus movements. Closely watching where his shadow connected to their opponents. The moment it broke they were attacking. They could see him manipulating the other shinobi into looking directly at him. Several seconds passed by, and the man fell over, rendered uncouncious. Hinata who could see the chakra, somewhat understood what was going on, but Chouji was shocked as he watched the man fall.

Naruto moved quickly to bind the man. Stripping him of his robes he found the mans forehead protector. He wore the symbol for the Hidden Village of Stone. However this meant little, the forehead protector showed home, not alliance. The man didn't have much else on him, a bag of kunai and shuriken. A few soldier pills, and a strange miniature statue.

Naruto confinscated the items, and finished binding the man. Naruto had spent only a month with Jiraiya. He wanted to make the most of his time, so when he rested he studied seals, and their different effects and uses. He had made a rope that had a special seal scrolled across the whole thing. The seal prevented the use of chakra. Naruto had been working on a version that actually absorbed chakra, but it wasn't ready to be used yet.

After the man was securily tied, they made their way back to the hut. The sun was shinning brightly in the morning sky. The time couldn't have been passed nine in the morning. It felt good to be out of the tunnels and back into fresh air.

They were slower traveling due to the extra body. However they all felt it was worth it. Tsunade had expected that her assasin would be highly dangerous. However, he didn't seem to have the skill to be the same ninja. Could the information have been incorrect, or just a diversion? Naruto pushed the pace as much as he could. He worried that something had gone wrong at the village.

After a few long days of traveling they slowly made it back to Konoha. Naruto was relieved to see that everything was ok. He went straight home to report. After making sure their prisoner was in good hands.

"Tsunade-sama I've come to report. Upon finding the man we engaged in Genjutsu tactics. He had started by getting us to walk in circles through his tunnels, getting closer and closer, hoping to surprise us. However, together with Shikamaru we figured out a best guess at his plan, and we countered with our own. Shikamaru was able to bind the man with his shadow, and then induce Magen: Jubaku Satsu, finally rendering him uncouncious. So we decided to capture him and bring him back for interogation. I do not believe this is the person who tried to kill you Hokage-sama. His skill was just not good enough." Naruto reported.

Tsunade sat and let this information sink in for a few moments. After gather her thoughts she finally spoke. "I think that you are right Naruto. This man is not powerful enough to get as far as the first. This leaves me to believe that he was just a man in disguise, possibly a distraction, or maybe even an early warning sign. Ibiki will interogate him tonight once the sun goes down. That weird man works better at night. We'll get answers from him, no matter what we have to do to him. Naruto your team did amazing, far better than I expected you to do. When did Shikamaru learn Genjutsu?"

"Kurenai had a few weeks off during a little of our training over the years, and we snuck it in as night workouts. Shikamaru is amazingly intelligent and he picked it up severly fast." Naruto replied.

"You say we, does that mean that you have learned some as well?" Tsunade replied, astounded at his progress.

"Well, Jiraiya started training me in prevention of them. So I had an idea of how they worked, and what to do to stop them. And so I just tried my best to reverse the process while learning them. I don't like too many people knowing what moves I know. So lets just say that I can hold my own." Naruto replied.

"Interesting. I wonder what else Jiraiya taught you about, I imagine you have become very useful. You did amazing in your Jounin exam. I was extremely impressed that you not only made it, but you trained your team in just the right way, and your whole team not only passed the next Chuunin exam, but also made Jounin in the latest exam. I want you to write a report on the true power of your team. Don't do it at home though, come to my office and write it tomorrow afternoon. And hand it directly to me when your done. I'm going to read it and then destroy it. I realize that you want to stay secretive. But the more I know the better I can use you to the villages advantages. After your report is done I have some new for you about your next mission. You are dismissed, I have a lot of paperwork that I have put off." Tsunade finished.

"I'll be here at noon." Naruto replied as he walked out of the office.

The next morning Naruto woke up, and headed over to Tsunades' office and started his report. For several hours Naruto wrote page after page of information regarding his teamates as well as himself. He also wrote about the proficeint ways they had learned to work together. He only took an hour and a half to finish the report. When he finished he handed it to Tsunade and waited as she read it over page for page. Sometimes Naruto could catch her eyes reading back over things that she had already read, he could tell she was surprised.

"Naruto I must say this report is surprising. I had expected you and your team to make great progress. You spent three years training under everyone in the village, from Kurenai, to Kakashi, Gai, and even spending some time with Jiraiya. You have become quite skilled. And I'm proud to place you, as well as your team, into the ANBU squad." Tsunade said slowly. Enjoying the look of happiness on Narutos' face. She knew he had longed hope to make it to where he was.

"Thank you so much Tsunade-sama. We will make you proud." Naruto blurted out, trying to catch himself.

"You will all be staying together in one team. Naruto you will serve as mission leader, however in some missions you will all have seperate objectives to be completing at the same time. Now we come to your first mission. It seems that Akatsuki is moving. Last night Ibiki was able to break that man's mind pretty easily and he spilled everything. He is a subordinate of Deidara. Who is from the same village. From what we were told his mission was given because of an incident within the organization. Some sort of misbehavior. The man also told us of an attack happening in the Sand. They are going to try and take Gaara. We must not allow this to happen." Tsunade stated.

"Tsunade, we can't let Gaara be taken. It would be horrible." Naruto said.

Nothing else could come to his mind. Over the years Gaara had changed. A year after the attack on Konoha Gaara fell in love with one of the fellow villagers. However, during a mission she was killed. Gaara was grief stricken for a month. And barely left a dome of sand he formed on the top of one of the surrounding ravens. After spending a month alone to his thoughts Gaara came out of his sand a different man. And vowed to protect his village.

Naruto and Gaara had worked together since then on a few side missions. To strengthen the relationship between Konoha and the Sand, they helped each other with a few missions. Mostly rebel shinobi causing trouble, and a few rescue mission for his siblings. Naruto had heard stories of Gaara since, he had become Kazekage of the Sand. He had made the villagers love him, and need him. Although Naruto didn't think anyone could understand him.

"Naruto, as you know, we have trained Five squads to deal with the members of Akatsuki. Deidara and Sasori were given to Kakashis' team, and a combination team of Kankurou, Neji, and Temari. I will not be sending your team on this mission Naruto." Tsunade stated.

"I understand Hokage-sama. The teams were made for a reason each one has it's strengths. But what is our mission?" Naruto asked.

"Naruto you and your team just finished training for three years straight. I want you to take a month off, and if we need your team we will use it. Other wise take some rest. Catch up with some friends, or polish some of your lacking skills. But by no means are you to leave the village. Now that they are moving, we can't afford to have you captured alone. It could be weeks before we find you." Tsunade explained.

"Understood, I suppose, tell the teams good luck, and know that we'll be on stand bye the whole time. If that is all I think that I'd like to get some food then, I'm hungry." Naruto finished.

He waited for Tsunade to nod in approval and left her office. As he walked towards his favorite ramen place Naruto thought about Gaara, and how he wished he could help protect his life. When Naruto had heard that Gaara was in love he felt over joyed, and longed to feel a connection like that to someone. But after she died, Naruto had pushed the thought aside and concentrated on his training. However now it was a hard emotion to ignore.

Naruto ate his usual twelve bowls of ramen and started the walk home. As he was walking out of the door, Naruto ran into Sakura. Naruto knew that Sakura had just heard about their mission, and hoped he could talk to her for a moment.

"Hello Sakura." Naruto said happily.

"Naruto, I suppose you've heard about our mission." She replied.

"Yes, I have. Although I wish I could join you guys, I understand why I must stay. And I just wanted to tell you that I'd be waiting for you to come back. You have become so strong in the last three years, it's really amazing. I'm sure that the mission will be an easy one." Naruto answered.

"I'm somewhat worried about it to be honest. I have improved, but not as much as my team mates. Shino is almost scary he is so strong, and now that Akamaru has grown up, Kiba is a force to be reckoned with. It is calming to know that Kakashi will be with us though. He will keep us safe." Sakura commented.

Naruto couldn't help but notice how beautiful Sakura is. Her smile made his stomach flutter. It was a feeling that Naruto was not familiar with.

"I guess I should go. We leave first thing in the morning and I have to pack my stuff before I go to sleep. When I come back, we should get some ramen or something." Sakura continued.

"I would like that, I'll see you then." Naruto finished.

Naruto watched as she walked away. Something strange had just happened and he wasn't sure what. But he knew who he would be thinking about for the next month.

Naruto climbed up the hundreds of stairs towards his room in the mansion. Along the way he made a stop in to see Sarutobi.

"Sarutobi, it's so good to see you again." Naruto said as he walked in the door.

"Naruto, Tsunade just filled me in on your progress. I'm so proud of you. ANBU already. Have you thought about your mask yet?" Sarutobi asked.

"I'm going to keep the same one from that first encounter with Akatsuki." Naruto replied.

"Interesting, Itachi and Kisame will recognize you most likely." The Third stated.

"I know, but my team isn't going to be trying to assassinate him, it will take a battle either way. At least the man will know who killed him." Naruto said bluntly.

"I hope that your skill hasn't made you over confident Naruto." Sarutobi retorted, unhappy to hear Naruto speak like that.

"No Sarutobi, that's not it. I'm just confident that my team can do it. Together we have pushed ourselves beyond expectations. Just as I wanted us to. Now we just have to prove that we were worth the training" Naruto replied.

"Naruto, I'm sure you have enough information on Akatsuki to know that there will be more members once we kill the ones we can find. And that they will only still get stronger. In the end we have to take out the leader. However the highest we can find is Pein. And we didn't find him, he killed his pursuit team, witnesses say he didn't even use a single technique. This is going to be a difficult mission for you. Once your team has defeated your target, most likely things will just get tougher." The old mans face looked worried. Sarutobi had not planned all of this chaos. It saddened him.

"I know that it will only get tougher. But I'm ready for it. I've always tried to be the best I could be. And one day I will be Hokage. Just like you, I want to protect this village, like Gaara does." Naruto said.

"All in time Naruto. The sun is going down, I'm getting slightly tired, I think I'm going to head to bed." The Third finished.

"Alright Sarutobi, I will see you again soon, maybe we can do lunch somtime." Naruto said as he walked out.

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So there it is the new chapter. I'm going to be doing a few things in the next one. Expect a character change as the story will be going into each of the battles in depth, so I'm leaving Naruto behind for a little while. It may take me a while to finish the next chapter, I'm not sure if I'm going to do it all in one chapter, or in a couple, probably a couple. I hope you guys liked it. Later.


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